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When JD Vance tours the twee towns of the Cotswolds this month on his family holiday, he will surely conclude that a populist wildfire is sweeping the shires. Across Middle England and beyond, the governing Labour party and the opposition Conservatives arouse derision if not contempt.
Into the void has stepped Nigel Farage of Reform UK, the latest smooth-talker to captivate an electorate with his “I’m the only one who tells it as it is” routine.
Britain is, if anything, a latecomer to Europe’s bonfire of the establishment. Across the continent, mainstream party after party has forfeited relevance and trust, condemned by their own complacency as much as anything else. And this is not just about Europe. Donald Trump is on a roll. From Chile to Japan, in different ways, the siren call of populism is striking a chord.
So how to respond? Globally, liberals are in a funk. But for those inclined to lose heart about the chance of voters electing a centrist in an age of algo-driven outrage, I have an answer: go to Bucharest, Romania’s shabby-chic capital. There you can have a brush-up course in how to keep populists at bay.
On the face of it, Romania is a curious case study for good governance. It was one of the slowest countries in eastern Europe to embrace democracy and the free market after the end of communism. For the past three decades, the centre-left and centre-right have presided alternately over a lacklustre record. Crony capitalism has flourished, as has disillusionment with the fruits of EU membership.
So in a region with a history of deep nationalism, and ripe for exploitation by Russian bots, it was no surprise that populists made the running ahead of this year’s elections — until they came up against a quiet brainiac with a history of getting things done.
Nicuşor Dan, the maths professor and former mayor of Bucharest who was elected president in May, demurs when asked for advice for fellow centrists. But he and his record embody a number of lessons that are relevant for Sir Keir Starmer, Britain’s becalmed prime minister, and other leaders at a loss over the populist surge.
The first is credibility, forfeited in Britain after a host of unfulfilled pledges over the years. “In Romania people were going for the populists because they do not trust the state, the authorities,” says Dan. “They see corruption, injustice . . . The only goal is to regain the trust of the people.”
His solution is a time-old political verity: do the boring tasks of government and voters just may remember you for it. As mayor of Bucharest he took on the property developers on behalf of the little people and oversaw a revamp of the city’s heating system: unflashy but invaluable goals.
His challenge in his new job is reducing the budget deficit — the highest in the EU — and gaining support in a divided parliament for the cost-cutting essential for that end. Again he points to his record, in this case in running Bucharest’s budget. Debt payments consumed three-quarters of it when he took charge. “I spent one and a half years rescheduling our obligations . . . ” The city’s finances are now on track.
Then there is tone. “Even if society is polarised, I have tried to be civilised with the others,” Dan says. “I try to have dialogue. People felt they are not being taken into account.”
The president speaks so softly you have to strain to hear him but he does know how to fight his corner, as in the pre-election debate when he demolished his opponent’s unfunded and unfundable pledges. He disdains the idea of pandering to the populists. Yet he is also willing to take on his own side, as he did recently when challenging — in vain — a hate-speech bill he thought went too far.
And then there is his strategic use of silence. He famously waits 15-20 seconds before answering some questions. Being too fastidious about the megaphone would be a mistake: it’s those with mastery of digital media, such as Trump and Farage, who are making hay. But his reflectiveness is a valued contrast to the noise of his foes.
Romania also manifests less edifying lessons in democracy. Vance was right to call out the intervention of the courts earlier this year in banning the presidential campaign of Călin Georgescu, the nationalist then frontrunner.
This informed a column I wrote in May under the headline “How not to fight populism: a lesson from Romania”. Now I can write my own riposte. Dan’s honeymoon will soon end. But the lessons he currently offers endure: get things done, show respect, don’t dance to the populists’ tune and remember the power of strategic silence.
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