Fascists enter parliament as COVID-19 devastates Romania
Elections in Romania were held on November 6, as the COVID-19 pandemic that has now killed more than 15,000 people ravaged the country. The election was marked by an unprecedented abstention only about 30 percent of the electorate turned up to vote and by the emergence of the fascist Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) party, which took 9 percent of the vote.
How has a hitherto unknown political entity, founded last year and which as late as September polled less than 1 percent, managed to become essentially the third political force in the country, after the Liberal-Save Romania alliance and the ex-Stalinist Social Democratic Party?