Who is Calin Georgescu, the far-right populist who won the 1st round of Romania's presidential race?

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Most polls predicted Calin Georgescu to win less than 10% of the vote in the first round of Romania's presidential election.

However, the 62-year-old obscure far-right populist shook the country's political landscape by clinching the most votes and advancing to the second round to face off against reformist Elena Lasconi of the progressive Save Romania Union party.

He also beat the incumbent Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu of the Social Democratic Party, leaving the ruling party for the first time in Romania’s 35-year post-communist history without a candidate in the runoff, set for Dec. 8.

The surprising outcome has left many political observers wondering how most local surveys were off, putting Georgescu behind at least five other candidates.

Born in Bucharest in 1962, Georgescu holds a doctorate in pedology, a branch of soil science, and held different positions in Romania’s environment ministry in the 1990s, according to his website. Between 1999 and 2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Program.

Once a member of Romania’s far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, or AUR, Georgescu left the party in 2022 after a period of infighting and being accused by colleagues of being pro-Russian and critical of NATO, the U.S.-led military alliance to which Romania belongs.

He supports the Romanian Orthodox Church and has sparked controversy in the past for describing Romanian fascist and nationalist leaders from the 1930s and 1940s as national heroes.

According to local media, he has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a man who loves his country” and called Ukraine “an invented state,” but he claims not to be pro-Russian. He is married with three sons.

Many observers have attributed Georgescu’s success to his TikTok account, which has 3.7 million likes and 274,000 followers. He gained huge traction and popularity in recent weeks.

According to a report by Expert Forum, a Bucharest-based think tank, Georgescu’s TikTok account has had an explosion which it said “appears sudden and artificial, similar to his polling results.”

On Nov. 18, his TikTok account had garnered 92.8 million views primarily within the last two months, the report states, a figure that grew by 52 million views a week later, just days before the first-round vote.

“The most visible theme pushed by Calin Georgescu on TikTok in the last two months is peace, more precisely the need for Romania to stop supporting Ukraine in order not to involve Romania in war,” the report states.

Another TikTok account, solely featuring Geogescu content, and which had 1.7 million likes late Sunday, appears to have been deleted. It had posts with Georgescu attending church, doing judo, running around an oval track, and speaking on podcasts.

“We need TikTok to shed some light and actually investigate what is happening in Romania,” Madalina Voinea, of Expert Forum, told The Associated Press.

Cristian Andrei, a political consultant based in Bucharest, says that Georgescu’s unexpected poll performance has less to do with his appeal and more due to voters growing tired of an out-of-touch political class.

"He’s just a guy who managed to use the social networks to make himself visible in a void for many Romanians who lost contact with political parties, at least with the elites in Bucharest,” he said. “The mainstream political parties have lost the ability to use these new platforms.”

He added that politicians from Romania’s traditional parties lacked messages of hope and no clear vision for their country ahead of the vote.

“The debates in these campaigns were very low in quality and ideas,” he said.

His positions include supporting Romanian farmers, reducing import dependence, and ramping up local energy and food production. He also wants to establish a “sovereign" distribution model allegedly based on participatory democracy in which “Truth, Freedom and Sovereignty are the axes of values” in Romania’s development.

On foreign policy, NATO and European Union member Romania will respect its obligations, he states on his website, but only “to the extent that they will respect theirs” toward Romania. He also says Romania must play “a more consistent role” in international affairs.

The war in neighboring Ukraine, he said, highlights “the importance of diversifying external relations” and that Romania should strengthen its defense capabilities.

Romania’s presidential role carries significant decision-making powers in areas such as national security, foreign policy and judicial appointments. While it has limited executive power in domestic affairs, a president can veto parliamentary law proposals, and dissolve parliament if a prime minister’s appointment is rejected twice,

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)

Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, the Social Democratic Party or PSD candidate in the country's presidential elections, removes his glasses while 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)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates said Monday police arrested three Uzbek nationals for the killing of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi, an attack that's raised concerns for the burgeoning Israeli community in the country.

The statement from the country's Interior Ministry offered no motive for the slaying of Zvi Kogan, though an Israeli Foreign Ministry official later told The Associated Press that he simply had been “killed because of who he was."

Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who went missing on Thursday, ran a kosher grocery store in the futuristic city of Dubai, where Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords.

The agreement has held through more than a year of soaring regional tensions unleashed by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel. But Israel’s devastating retaliatory offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, after months of fighting with the Hezbollah militant group, have stoked anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals and others living in the UAE.

The Interior Ministry statement identified the three men as Olimboy Tohirovich, 28, Makhmudjon Abdurakhim, 28, and Azizbek Kamilovich, 33. The state-run WAM news agency carried images of the three men, blindfolds covering their faces in prison uniforms and flip flops.

The preliminary probe into the men is “in preparation for referring them to the public prosecution for further investigation,” the Interior Ministry said.

It wasn't immediately clear if the three men had lawyers or had sought consular assistance in the UAE, an autocratically ruled nation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula. The Uzbek Consulate in Dubai did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the arrests.

Israeli media reports, citing unnamed security officials, had alleged Uzbeks were involved in Kogan's killing. Uzbeks and other transnational criminal gangs previously have been hired in Iranian plots targeting dissidents and others.

Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah, has also been threatening to retaliate against Israel after a wave of airstrikes Israel carried out in October in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack. Iran’s Embassy in Abu Dhabi has denied Tehran was involved in the rabbi’s slaying.

While the UAE statement did not mention Iran, Iranian intelligence services have carried out past kidnappings in the UAE.

Western officials believe Iran runs intelligence operations in the UAE and keeps tabs on the hundreds of thousands of Iranians living across the country.

Iran is suspected of kidnapping and later killing British Iranian national Abbas Yazdi in Dubai in 2013. Iran also kidnapped Iranian German national Jamshid Sharmahd in 2020 from Dubai, taking him back to Tehran, where he was executed in October.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also offered a glancing reference to Iran in remarks about Kogan's killing.

“I greatly appreciate the cooperation of the UAE in investigating the murder,” he said. “We will strengthen the ties between us in the face of attempts by the axis of evil to harm the relationship of peace between us.”

The Rimon Market, a kosher grocery store that Kogan managed on Dubai’s busy Al Wasl Road, was shut Sunday. As the wars have roiled the region, the store has been the target of online protests by supporters of the Palestinians. Mezuzahs on the front and back doors of the market appeared to have been ripped off.

Kogan's body was flown back to Israel on Monday ahead of a planned funeral the following day.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry official, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation and diplomatic matters, said authorities believe Kogan's death came from his identity as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, not anything else.

“He was attacked because of who he was,” the official said.

Since the Oct. 7 attacks, Israelis and Jews in the UAE have been on edge. Worship, which typically requires 10 Jewish men to happen, still takes place but not at sites previously used by the community, the official said.

The official acknowledged that tensions likely boil beneath the surface in the UAE, but praised the Emirati government for their investigation into Kogan's killing. Israeli security services have been involved in the probe, the official said. That likely includes the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service.

The UAE, while strenuously criticizing the conduct of the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip, has maintained its diplomatic relations with Israel. Israeli diplomats also have returned to Bahrain, the official said.

“They might not agree with what we do in the war ... but the dialogue allows them to send in all the humanitarian aid,” the official said of the Emirati government.

The official added: “It's been challenging to the relationship, but in a way, that keeps it strong.”

A man walks past Rimon Market, a Kosher grocery store managed by the late Rabbi Zvi Kogan, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell)