Rumanians are struggling, with many blaming the war in Ukraine for the surge in energy prices and wanting the conflict to “end soon”.

Many are unhappy that Ukrainian refugees are receiving handouts. Perhaps that’s why a “far-right, pro-Russian candidate” had taken a “surprising lead in the presidential election in Romania”.

Georgescu – who received almost 23 per cent of the vote in the first round – wasn’t even the most popular “nationalist” candidate; that was George Simion of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians. But Simion only got 13.8 per cent, writes Neil Clark in The Spectator.

Georgescu previously belonged to Simion’s alliance (AUR), but this time stood as an independent candidate. He was given little or no chance.

In the October polls, Georgescu was expected to get 0.4 per cent of the vote, and even in November he was predicted to get only 5.4 per cent. But the “man from nowhere”, who campaigned mainly on TikTok, surprised everyone.

Then came the usual allegations of Russia collusion, which always happens when someone not approved by the so-called liberal elite wins an election.

Georgescu has admittedly praised Vladimir Putin as a “man who loves his country”, and he ran on an anti-NATO and anti-EU platform.

Sure, Georgescu, like Trump, aims to bring a swift end to the war in Ukraine and is opposed to more military aid to Kiev. But until there is hard evidence, claims that the Kremlin is behind his success should be dismissed as sour grapes, says Clark.

Georgescu brilliantly focussed the concerns of ordinary Romanians directly, which is why he got so many votes. He’s anti-EU, anti-NATO, and something of a shocking Romanian nationalist. He put it bluntly: I care more about Romania than about the rest of the world. Social democrats and EU-loving reformists, on the other hand, have a completely different attitude. The Romanians said no.

There are many indications that Georgescu will emerge victorious from the second round of elections. He focuses on workers and farmers in his own country and is, among other things, a strong opponent of duty-free imports of agricultural products from Ukraine, which escape the EU’s radical climate targets and sky-high taxes.

This is something that has hit Romanian farmers hard. So it’s no wonder that many farmers are supporting a politician who both wants to stop these unfair imports and promises increased support for farmers.

It’s fine to be dismissive of calls for a negotiated solution to end the war in Ukraine when you’re a wealthy Eurocrat flying across the continent to various think-tank conferences and can easily cope with the “collateral damage” in the form of sky-high electricity bills, which you can probably claim from your expense account. But when you’re an elderly pensioner in a country where winters can be incredibly harsh, it’s a very different story.

This is what Georgescu has capitalised on. He said he stood up “for those who feel like they don’t matter, and who actually matter the most”.

Do you automatically become “far right” if you focus on your own nation? It sure seems that way. Democracy today is submitting to supranational and hyper-corrupt organisations such as the World Economic Forum, the EU, the UN and the World Health Organisation. It is not democracy to follow the wishes of the people.

But that’s clearly not the attitude of commuter housing scammers and other corrupt politicians. That’s why the voters who voted for Georgescu are being attacked as a basket of deplorables, or as Solberg put it: a hodgepodge.

Those who claim the loudest that they support “democracy” are the ones who reach for the insult book every time a democratic result goes in the wrong direction. Clearly, the bad Romanians were not meant to vote the way they did, in the name of “democratic values”.

The Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL) have lost all public trust, a trend we are seeing across Europe. None of their candidates made it through to the second round of voting. What Georgescu did was to speak, without apology, the language of the country’s forgotten millions. That language is Christianity. Romania is one of the most religious countries in Europe.

There are churches – usually beautiful churches – everywhere. More than 80 per cent of the population identify as Orthodox Christians, and around 5 per cent as Roman Catholics.

Clark also mentions some touching stories about the strong family ties in Romania, such as when a father lost his son and spent everything he owned to build a tomb where he could sleep with his dead son, which he did until he died himself and could finally be reunited with his beloved son. These are the kinds of things that the woke elite will naturally ridicule, while being unable to explain what a woman is.

Now Europe’s grotesque elite is hoping that “democratic forces” will support the neoliberal “reformist” Elena Lasconi, a former TV presenter and strong supporter of the EU and NATO. Lasconi herself has said that Romania now faces an “existential battle” for its democracy.

But she will struggle. The PSD’s left-wing supporters, especially the elderly, are likely to vote for Georgescu with his populist economic message. And Georgescu is also likely to get most of the votes of those who voted for George Simion (13.86 per cent) in the first round. It looks like Romania is jumping on the Trump bandwagon.

Social conservatism, patriotism and love of country, as well as economic populism and a focus on the cost of living, this is what Georgescu is winning voters on. It’s a lot about the economy and inflation, the poor state of Romania, and also about his promise to create peace at all costs.

People are tired of ‘political correctness’ and woke, so Georgescu has a winning formula. He’ll be like Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Robert Fico in Slovakia, both of whom also want a quick end to the war in Ukraine.

– There is no east or west, there is only Romania, he said on Monday.

– We are still committed to European values, but we must be committed to ourselves and our families, to our children, to our ancestors. “Insular Christian nationalism”, as it has been labelled in an editorial in The Guardian, is not a threat to democracy. It is, in fact, democracy in practice.

But Western woke-democrats only accept democracy where they are winners. Now they are losing ground across much of the West, and rarely has anything been more well-deserved and gratifying. The Norwegian Labour Party is also moving rapidly towards its ultimate demise. Then there may be hope here in Norway too, but I won’t be popping the champagne just yet.