Hope the Romaninas unite to defet Georgescu in the final election round.
I’m really struggling to understand what Hungarians, Romanians and other countries that were occupied by Russia (not as part of the Soviet Union, but for all intents and purposes, they were part of the Soviet bloc) for the better part of the 20th century have to gain from aligning themselves with Putin. Can someone chime in?
They gain power. Both countries have their own divisions, the Soviet leaning authoritarian populist part is to gain a seat, entrench in and make it very hard to unseat, then attack the opposition from there. Victor Orban has done it in Hungary. Romania had an extremely weak, incompetent and corrupt president, the new contender is basically mimicking Trump and leveraging post-truth heavily. It seems like it works for him, people who voted for him aren't the smartest cookies and there's a lot of them. On the other hand, the not so smart cookies have some gripes that are quite valid. They also don't involve themselves in politics but seek a savior to fix all their problems.
Do people really think that being pro-Russia will materially improve their standard of living? I think this is all people really care about, anyway.
No, they likely are voting against their own interests. They're just charmed with populist messages. Nostalgia plays a part as well and some know how to manipulate it well: eg. Make America Great Again and such...