One of the big surprises of the Romanian parliamentary elections held on December 6 was that a far-right nationalist party founded just a year ago, the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), will enter parliament with almost 9 percent of the votes. One of the founders of this party is the infamous blogger Dan Tanasă, who has initiated numerous lawsuits demanding that Hungarian and Szekler symbols be banned. As a result, several Szekler settlements have had to remove flags and Hungarian inscriptions from state-owned institutions. The surprises seem to keep coming: Although the party’s rhetoric is unequivocally anti-Hungarian, one of the future parliamentarians of the AUR is an ethnic Hungarian. The ziare.com news portal has recently published a profile piece on the newly born politician.
Vasile Nagy was elected deputy of the AUR in the western Romanian county of Arad. “I have never run for office before. I knew about the activity of George Simion (i.e., the party’s president, who is otherwise known as the leader of a group of Romanian nationalist soccer “ultras”). When I heard he had founded a party, I decided I’d like to join ranks,” declared Nagy, who is, by profession, an engineer and a doctoral student at the Politechnica University Timişoara.
According to Nagy, AUR is “not an extremist political organization.” “I feel at ease in this party, and no one has opposed or insulted me,” he said. The future AUR member of parliament added that he entirely agrees with the recent statement by the party’s leader regarding the political representation of minorities. As George Simion declared, “political organizations should not be allowed to form and function based on ethnic criteria.”
“As we are members of the European Union, we should evolve, considering the motto of unity in diversity. Parties should not be founded based on ethnic criteria. We were born and raised in Romania, live in Romania. We were born here and we die here, thus we can be none other but Romanian,” Nagy stressed. He also added that the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (otherwise known by its Hungarian acronym RMDSZ) should consider reorganizing and accepting ethnic Romanians in its ranks.
“As far as I know, there are no Romanians in the RMDSZ, and it does not seem normal,” the AUR politician believes. On the other hand, Nagy pointed out in the interview that he is “a convinced European,” and every state should prosper within the European Union.
“Nevertheless, defending one’s home, in this case, one’s country should not be a problem. One should keep one’s values and traditions, as these values define the identity. We are pro-Europe, and we hope Romania enters the Schengen area soon,” the future deputy added.
When asked about the “unseen force” which might have had helped AUR enter parliament, Nagy declared he has “never seen such force.” “We organized ourselves the best we could, and all the people involved in the campaign carried out a huge deal of work. There was also a considerable amount of volunteering for our cause,” Nagy explained.
As Radio Free Europe news portal noted in an article on the parliamentary election results in Romania, the AUR’s leader has been banned for five years from entering the neighboring Moldova after saying it should be united with Romania. Simion’s group of ultras was also involved in the altercations last year with ethnic Hungarians over the Úz Valley military.
The group was behind anti-mask-wearing protests in Bucharest as well. AUR’s result at the elections is partially due to the record low turnout rate, as only about a third of eligible voters went to the polls.
Title image: Future AUR deputy Vasile Nagy says ethnicity is not important. He also stated that one should not renounce one’s identity
Photo source: Facebook/Vasile Nagy
