BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romania's political landscape is reeling after a little-known, far-right populist secured the first round in the presidential election, electoral data showed Monday, going from an obscure candidate to beating the incumbent prime minister.
Calin Georgescu, who ran independently, will face off against reformist Elena Lasconi in a runoff in two weeks.
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George Simion, the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) candidate for president speaks during a press briefing before the polls close during the country's presidential elections, in Bucharest, Romania, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)
George Simion, the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) candidate for president speaks to media after polls closed during the country's presidential elections, in Bucharest, Romania, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)
George Simion, the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) candidate for president reacts after polls closed during the country's presidential elections, in Bucharest, Romania, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)
Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, the Social Democratic Party or PSD candidate in the country's presidential elections, leaves after waching exit polls after voting ended, in Bucharest, Romania, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Calin Georgescu, running as an independent candidate for president, speaks to media after registering his bid in the country's presidential elections, in Bucharest, Romania, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexandru Dobre)
Georgescu, 62, was ahead after nearly all ballots were counted with around 22.95% of the vote. Lasconi of the progressive Save Romania Union party, or USR, followed with 19.17%. She beat by a slim margin incumbent Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu of the Social Democratic Party, or PSD, who stood at 19.15%. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, or AUR, took 13.87%.
It is the first time in Romania’s 35-year post-communist history for the PSD not to have a candidate in the second round of a presidential race, serving a huge blow to the country’s most powerful party and underscoring voters’ anti-establishment sentiment.
After polls closed on Sunday, 9.4 million people — about 52.5% of eligible voters — had cast ballots, according to the Central Election Bureau. The second round of the vote will be held on Dec. 8. Georgescu, 62, won 43.3% of the vote in Romania's large diaspora, compared to Lasconi who got 26.8%.
Most local surveys predicted he would win less than 10% of the vote.
The president serves a five-year term in the European Union and NATO member country and has significant decision-making powers in areas such as national security, foreign policy and judicial appointments.
After casting his ballot on Sunday, Georgescu said in a post on Facebook that he voted “For the unjust, for the humiliated, for those who feel they do not matter and actually matter the most … the vote is a prayer for the nation.”
According to his website, Georgescu holds a doctorate in pedology, a branch of soil science, and held different positions in Romania’s environment ministry in the 1990s. Between 1999 and 2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Program.
Despite not having a clear political agenda, his videos on TikTok are popular, amassing 1.7 million likes.
But his rising popularity will be tested when he faces Lasconi.
Lasconi, a former journalist and the leader of the USR, has been running on an anti-corruption reformist agenda. She told The Associated Press ahead of the vote, that she saw corruption as one of the biggest problems Romania faces and expressed support toward increased defense spending and continued aid to Ukraine. If she wins the final vote, she will be the first female president in Romania's history.
Romania will also hold parliamentary elections on Dec. 1 that will determine the country’s next government and prime minister.
George Simion, the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) candidate for president speaks during a press briefing before the polls close during the country's presidential elections, in Bucharest, Romania, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)
George Simion, the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) candidate for president speaks to media after polls closed during the country's presidential elections, in Bucharest, Romania, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)
George Simion, the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) candidate for president reacts after polls closed during the country's presidential elections, in Bucharest, Romania, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)
Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, the Social Democratic Party or PSD candidate in the country's presidential elections, leaves after waching exit polls after voting ended, in Bucharest, Romania, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Calin Georgescu, running as an independent candidate for president, speaks to media after registering his bid in the country's presidential elections, in Bucharest, Romania, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexandru Dobre)
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday described a public threat by the vice president to have him killed by an assassin as a criminal plot and vowed to fight it, in a looming showdown between the country’s two top leaders.
Vice President Sara Duterte said Saturday in an online news conference that she has contracted an assassin to kill the president, his wife and the speaker of the House of Representatives if she herself is killed, in a threat she warned was not a joke.
The national police and military immediately boosted the security of the president, and the justice department said it would summon the vice president for an investigation. The National Security Council said it considered the threat a national security concern.
The vice president, a lawyer, later tried to walk back her remarks by saying it was not an actual threat but an expression of concern about her own safety over an unspecified threat.
“Why would I kill him if not for revenge from the grave? There is no reason for me to kill him. What’s the benefit for me?” Duterte told journalists.
“That criminal plot should not be allowed to pass,” Marcos said in a televised statement, without mentioning Duterte by name. “I’ll fight it.”
"As a democratic country, we need to uphold the rule of law,” Marcos said.
Marcos ran with Duterte as his vice-presidential running mate in May 2022 elections and both won landslide victories on a campaign call of national unity. In the Philippines, the two positions are elected separately.
The two leaders and their camps, however, soon had a bitter falling out over key differences, including in their approaches to China’s aggressive territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea. Duterte resigned from the Marcos Cabinet in June as education secretary and head of an anti-insurgency body.
On Monday, Justice Undersecretary Jesse Andres said in a news conference that Duterte would be subpoenaed to face an investigation.
Andres called the vice president the “self-confessed mastermind” of a “premeditated plot to assassinate the president.” All government resources and law enforcement agencies would be mobilized to identify the alleged assassin and determine criminal accountability, he said.
“We have to maintain order in a civilized society by adherence to the rule of law and we will apply the full strength and force of the law on this,” Andres said.
Under Philippine law, such public remarks may constitute a crime of threatening to inflict a wrong on a person or their family and are punishable by a jail term and fine.
The Philippine Constitution says that if a president dies, sustains a permanent disability, is removed from office or resigns, the vice president takes over and serves the rest of the term.
Duterte said she was ready to face investigators or an impeachment complaint in Congress, but added she would also demand answers to her allegations against Marcos and his allies.
“I will also not allow what they did to me to pass,” she told reporters.
The vice president is the daughter of Marcos’ predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, whose police-enforced anti-drug crackdown when he was a city mayor and later president left thousands of mostly petty drug suspects dead in killings that the International Criminal Court has been investigating as a possible crime against humanity.
Like her equally outspoken father, the vice president became a vocal critic of Marcos, his wife Liza Araneta-Marcos and House Speaker Martin Romualdez, the president’s cousin, accusing them of corruption, incompetence and politically persecuting the Duterte family and its supporters.
Last month, the vice president told reporters her relationship with Marcos had “gone so toxic” that she has imagined “cutting his head.
Romualdez told the House of Representatives that the vice president was trying to distract attention from her alleged misuse of public funds, which Congress is investigating. Several legislators reaffirmed their trust in the House speaker and condemned Duterte's remarks.
Her latest tirade was set off by the decision by House members allied with Romualdez and Marcos to detain Duterte's chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, who was accused of hampering a congressional inquiry into the possible misuse of Duterte's budget as vice president and education secretary. Lopez has been detained in a hospital after being traumatized by a plan by legislators to temporarily detain her in prison.
In a pre-dawn online news conference on Saturday, an angry Duterte accused Marcos of incompetence as president and of being a liar along with his wife and the House speaker, in expletive-laden remarks.
When concerns over her security were raised, Duterte, 46, suggested there was an unspecified plot to kill her. “Don’t worry about my security because I’ve talked with somebody. I said ‘if I’m killed, you’ll kill BBM, Liza Araneta and Martin Romualdez. No joke, no joke,’” the vice president said, without elaborating and using the initials that many use to refer to the president.
"I’ve given my order, ‘If I die, don’t stop until you’ve killed them.’ And he said, ’yes,’” the vice president said.
Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, left seated, listens to House Speaker Martin Romualdez shown on an electronic board at the House of Representative in Quezon City, Philippines Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, center, walks while a hearing she is attending is suspended at the House of Representative in Quezon City, Philippines Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte talks to reporters while a hearing she is attending is suspended at the House of Representative in Quezon City, Philippines Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte listens as she attends a hearing at the House of Representative in Quezon City, Philippines on Monday Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte gestures as she attends a hearing at the House of Representative in Quezon City, Philippines on Monday Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
