The crisis of liberal democracy has been discussed since before 2010 and the emergence and strengthening of populist and illiberal parties, due to the economic crisis, have reinforced the erosion of democratic institutions across the EU and especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Populism and illiberalism are ideologies based upon the confrontation either between ”the people” and the ”elite”, or between social groups considered antagonistic, such as ”the conservative” and ”the progressive”. Such ideologies have been a fertile ground for various conspiracy theories and for the resurrection of strongly religious behaviors.
The impact of the Coronavirus pandemic has been colossal worldwide, confronting both authorities and society with a completely new reality that no one, in fact, knew how to handle properly. However, due to the restrictions and limitations imposed by the authorities to contain the pandemic, various social groups were seduced by new conspiracy theories, new religious or nationalist obsessions meant to alleviate their ontological and social fears. The indecision of the authorities in many countries, coupled with previous political tensions (USA, France, etc.) created an explosive mix of political, economic and social resentment and many conspiracies – some apocalyptic, which led to social explosions such as those in the United States, Germany and France.
This mix has led to the formation in Romania of the AUR party (Alliance for the Union of Romanians), a clearly anti-system party, attracted by illiberal models such as those in Hungary and Poland, self-declared EU sovereigntist, deeply religious, nationalist and with authoritarian tendencies. It must be said that the emergence of such a party was an extremely strong shock for Romanian society, as since 2008 no self-declared nationalist (and openly populist) party has entered the Romanian Parliament and Romania seemed to be the only country in the region where populism did not haunt. Of course, a populist nationalist current was shared almost unanimously among the mainstream parties, but none of them was so radical to be considered a right-wing populist party in the classical sense of the word. In general, the political parties in Romania kept themselves away from nationalist extremism and took a centrist stance on the big issues of European populism such as migration or Euroscepticism, especially because Romania is a country of emigration more than a country of immigration.
Its entire election campaign was based on their rejection of health restrictions taken by the Romanian and European authorities, especially wearing the mask and local lockdowns. The AUR party got into Parliament with 10% of the votes, and in most opinion polls it had a support of 20% and above. All the policies proposed by AUR question the authority of the state and liberal democracy, with some leaders openly advocating pre-war fascist movements or Vladimir Putin's authoritarianism.
The article aims to explain the rise of AUR in Romanian society and its ideological foundation as well as the kind of political campaign they run for coming to power and start a government that will of course be anti-liberal and Eurosceptic.