Andrei Țăranu
The most prominent group, in terms of age, was thirty-five- to fifty-five-year-olds: some 67 percent of them voted for him. People over age fifty-five voted mostly for Nicușor Dan. The youngest generation (one million voters aged eighteen to twenty-five) were split equally. The voters between twenty-five and thirty-five years old had a weak turnout in the first round, but it was much higher in the second round — they probably prompted the switch to Dan.
The thirty-five- to fifty-five-year-olds [mostly grew up soon before the 1989] revolution, they were the victims of the economic and political transition after the collapse of communism, and the beginning of the European Union period [Romania joined the European Union in 2007]. The transition had a heavy toll. During communism, people didn’t know what it was to be jobless, paying for housing, electricity, health, education. . . . From 1996, when the Right came into power and started to impose capitalist ideas in Romania, there was a huge privatization of industry, which continued until 2005. That is why this generation does not like capitalism very much.
Besides, Georgescu and Simion said they wanted justice, some sort of “Robin Hood policies” for people who were left behind by the transition to capitalism and Romania’s period of EU membership, mainly during the crisis of the early 2010s. Those people revolted against the political and economic establishment.
In terms of youngsters, the problem is that after 2012, a huge cohort of people lost their chance of a future and became NEETs [people not in employment, education, or training], many of them among the poorest sectors of Romanian society. Those people are really angry, they are mesmerized by the mobs [mafiosi], by the people who make money [easily] like that. These thirty-five- to fifty-five-year-olds can be brought back into the political mainstream with the necessary policies. But these people have a very poor education, they are radicalized, and it will be hard to bring them back.
Great Job Andrei Țăranu & the Team @ Jacobin Source link for sharing this story.
