RFK Jr mulls Romania visit to meet 'TikTok Messiah' candidate

Romania’s far-right nationalist presidential candidate Călin Georgescu said Robert F Kennedy Jr might visit Bucharest to promote his latest book, to which Georgescu wrote the preamble.

“As you know, the famous book by Robert Kennedy (Jr), who will most likely be the future secretary of health under President Donald Trump, was prefaced by me, and he has long wanted to come to Romania to launch this book. It is possible that he will do so in the near future,” Georgescu told Romanian channel Realitatea Plus.

Georgescu’s supporters claimed on social media that RFK Jr “will most likely come” on 5 December to present the book called The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health.

Already dubbed as the Tiktok Messiah because of his ultra-religious statements, Georgescu claims Romania must be neutral and that the war in Ukraine does not exist.

Georgescu’s first-round victory in last week’s presidential elections was made possible by a protest vote boosted by an unprecedented TikTok campaign, which raised questions in Bucharest and Brussels over electoral interference.

Romanian authorities are calling on the European Commission to investigate TikTok over its breach of the EU Digital Services Act regarding its massive influence campaign for the anti-EU, pro-Russian presidential candidate.

Romania recounts all presidential ballots

Meanwhile, a race has begun in the country to recount all the votes from the first round after another candidate made accusations of possible electoral fraud.

Romania’s Constitutional Court asked the country’s central election authority to recount and check ballots from Sunday’s presidential election’s first round.

If this changes the order of the winners, then the first round might be repeated.

A lawyer specialising in environmental protection, RFK Jr was outspoken against vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Donald Trump has picked him for the position of Secretary of Health and has promised to “make America healthy again”.

Kennedy is the nephew of former US President John F Kennedy and the son of Senator Robert F Kennedy, both assassinated.

After his surprise victory in the first round of the election last week, Georgescu’s network and connections are garnering more attention at home and abroad.

The “anti-system candidate” with connections to the system

Despite describing himself as an “anti-system candidate” running for election as an antidote to the old political class, Georgescu has been associated with the political establishment since the fall of communism.

At the beginning of the 1990s, he was a protege of Mircea Malița, an ambassador of Romania to Switzerland and the US during the communist era, to whom he refers as his mentor.

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Malița gave him an opening to the Club of Rome, the international organisation of intellectuals and business leaders that emerged in the 1990s, which included powerful post-communist Romania personalities, including the governor of the National Bank of Romania, Mugur Isărescu and former presidents Emil Constantinescu and Ion Iliescu.

Georgescu went on to hold various advisory positions in Romania’s ministries until 2005.

As early as 2016, his name was cited on various websites, including Russian government-run news site Sputnik, as a possible candidate for prime minister.

In 2018, Georgescu appeared in an interview on domestic public broadcaster, in which he stated that Romania has a servile attitude towards the US and praised Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

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“Vladimir Putin is a leader. He is one of the few leaders. He loves his country. Regardless of the means”, Georgescu said on TVR.

In 2020, George Simion, another far-right presidential candidate, actively promoted Georgescu as the prime minister of his newly formed party, AUR, if the party came to power.

However, he quickly distanced himself from Georgescu after Georgescu claimed in 2022 that Ion Antonescu, Romania’s World War II prime minister who facilitated the Holocaust, and Corneliu Zelea Codreanu — another violent, antisemitic nationalist — were heroes.

From his appearances in recent years to the statements made during this electoral campaign, Georgescu has not offered any coherent ideas about how he would fulfil the role of president.

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However, he has been consistent in expressing radical, anti-European, pro-Russian, and conspiracy theories and opinions. He has stated, among other things, that he doesn’t believe man walked on the Moon and that a woman could never be president of Romania.