Four times more than the “average young person” in the EU, young Romanians are struck by the impossibility of buying the things they need. The youth were the first vulnerable to the pandemic, crisis and war. At this time, the traditional parties are engaged in momentary political calculations, not the perspective for society.

The survey data of young people who prefer the AUR, recently exclusively published by HotNews.ro and confirming the trend noted by sociological studies in recent years, was not a wake-up call for politicians and a connection with the reality of Romania. whose vote they are preparing to ask for, four times this year.

Raresh Bohdan (PNL) and Lucian Romashkanu (PSD) came to the conclusion from positions of power that the TikTok platform is responsible for the “GOLD phenomenon” and “influence on the minds of voters.” Finally, they offered a quick application adjustment.

But did TikTok really make GOLD big? It was certainly a means to spread the messages of George Simeon’s party in an environment that favors, rather, young people.

But why do AUR messages matter more in the proposition that this huge online hub challenges users with?

The COVID pandemic, the economic crisis and the war are the main crises that are superimposed on each other

The mentioned politicians refused propaganda and aggressive manipulation. To some extent they are right, but in this way they have closed the door to a reality they pretend not to see.

But this year’s elections are also taking place in such realities, which are radically different from the previous elections.

Not only four years have passed since the last election, but the world has experienced moments that have not been experienced not only by the youth, but also by the electorate that has long passed the period of youth.

The past four years have been marked by a series of overlapping major crises. The pandemic, economic crisis and war left a significant mark on society.

GOLD began to rise at an impressive rate during the pandemic, going from less than 1% in September 2020 locally to 9% three months later in December 2020. And it continued to grow, eventually being quoted at about 20% over the years of surveys.

Opportunism to harvest social anger

AUR did not come up with some miracle recipe. From the very beginning, it was an opportunistic party that managed to capitalize on all the anger of an electorate that felt abandoned by traditional parties, more concerned with the political calculations of the moment than offering a perspective to society.

It was a pandemic with difficult decisions, incomprehensible, sometimes almost incomprehensible, made, in particular, because of political interests (see the triumphant declarations in the summer of 2020, on the eve of the election campaign, that the disease virus was defeated, so that in a few months disaster would follow).

An economic crisis has come, a natural consequence of the moment of the pandemic, which paralyzed the business environment. Then came the war, which intensified it.

Young Romanians are four times more likely than the EU average to be unable to buy the things they need

This inevitably led to a social crisis, which was strongly felt by the most vulnerable categories of the population. One of them is even represented by young people. And the statistics confirm it. According to Eurostat, in 2022 Romania had the highest rate of severe material and social poverty in the EU among 15-29 year olds: 25.4%, while the EU bloc average was 6%.

And deprivation makes the difference between not having food or decent housing and not having a PlayStation. Our youth are in trouble because they lack or cannot afford the important, necessary elements of life.

In such an atmosphere of social anxiety and in the absence of an adequate response from the decisive parties, George Simion’s party only rewrote its message according to the coordinates that had been the prerogative of the PNL, USR, and PSD until now. From respect for the law, fundamental rights and freedoms to the protection of vulnerable categories, the AUR has evolved at the level of social perception from a marginal entity to a party that has invested significant trust capital.

Political villainy

But is AUR a different party than it was four years ago? Of course not. But the audience grew due to the attraction of new categories of people. As a journalist, I have almost never been absent from large AUR meetings in recent years. At first, yes, they had almost the air of a football gallery. Then, however, the human landscape became much more complex, with people from all walks of life. However, it remains to be seen how the most informed and European-valued people will react when the AUR goes overboard.

George Simeon’s party debates some of the right, legitimate issues related to poverty, education, health, which it pushes from the inside to the outside, in a toxic debate typical of authoritarian, not democratic societies. Constructing an enemy outside the sphere of its manifestation is a classic way of justifying political impotence.

Claiming, for example, that you want a stronger Romania in the EU is one thing, but saying that the European Union is the new Soviet Union is on the list of political villainy.

Unfortunately, PNL and PSD, who have been in power alternately or together for the last 30 years, are patronizing Romania, which they are trying to embellish by buying up all the advertising space.

The cynical calculation of unification irritated the society even more

Paying tribute to the pernicious style of politics he perpetuates from one election cycle to the next only inflames anger and indirectly legitimizes the AUR. Instead, the AUR in its own way took to the streets, managed to attract the energy that the USR could not contain due to its brazen self-sufficiency.

It is no coincidence that now the parties are at the lowest level of trust in the last 30 years. The latest steps in the political arena do not calm the tide, on the contrary.

The decision of the PNL and PSD to combine the European parliamentary elections with the local ones was not made because of any deep democratic feeling, but as a result of a cynical calculation to preserve power and lower the AUR.

They calculated like this: the votes of the diaspora, which George Simion’s party was counting on to get a good result in the European Parliament elections, which traditionally do not show much interest, may now be lost to the votes of the huge party machine that the PNL and PSD have in the country.

When young people mobilize to vote

Under these conditions, the momentum that AUR has gained in the political arena is not surprising, as well as the fact that George Simion’s party is preferred by young people. It is difficult to say how much this will matter for the vote. Expectations are risky.

Young people’s interest in elections over the past ten years was greater in moments of polarization at the level of society:

• In 2014, during the presidential elections, when more than 50% of those aged 18 to 34 turned out to vote.
• In 2019, when the European Parliament elections were combined with a referendum on justice, the percentage was 41%, and in the presidential election it was 39%, according to official data.

Otherwise, the level of participation was reduced – parliamentary 2016 (about 30%), local and parliamentary 2020 (23%). In the above-average cases, the mobilization took place against the backdrop of a confrontation between the traditional camp and the anti-establishment political camp.

There’s no guarantee GOLD’s momentum will continue, just as there’s no guarantee things can’t change quickly. Illusory decisions can have dramatic consequences, if only because you didn’t know until now that the evil could be greater. And it’s not TikTok’s fault.