Romanian presidential candidate in ‘antisemitism scandal’ after praising pre-war nationalist leader

Romania is the latest country whose politics have been engulfed by history wars, after a controversial interview by the premier candidate of its fourth-largest party

The honorary president of Romania’s fourth-largest political party has ignited a fierce argument over his country’s political history, after praising the pre-war Romanian nationalist leader Corneliu Codreanu.

An agronomist and former UN expert in sustainable development, Călin Georgescu was set to contest the next Romanian presidential election as candidate of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), a nationalist/populist party which has twice nominated him for prime minister.

Georgescu first defended Codreanu in a Facebook video in 2020, and when asked about these views last week during a mainstream Romanian television interview, he refused to back down. Jewish groups have reacted with predictable outrage, demanding that the AUR disown Georgescu and his ‘antisemitism’.

Unfortunately the party’s co-president George Simion seems disposed to comply with the thought-police, and has indicated that the AUR accepts Romania’s ‘Holocaust denial’ law, in force since 2002.

For the benefit of those who care more about real history than about whatever myths are mandated by Romanian law, H&D today publishes for the first time an online version of a review by our assistant editor that appeared in our magazine in 2017. Click here to read Peter Rushton’s review of From Lightning, Troy Southgate’s biography of Codreanu.

Corneliu Codreanu (above right) with his former ally Marshal Ion Antonescu, who sadly betrayed Romanian nationalism as a reactionary dictator during the Second World War