Romanian politics has always had its own peculiar ways and goings, with a tacit and widespread acceptance of corruption, with politicians prone to theatrical performances; with heated verbal arguments mixed with occasional physical altercations, and with a penchant for conspiracy theories.
Who could forget the absurd turn of the 2009 presidential debate, when Mircea Geoană (yes, the long time diplomat, foreign minister and later deputy secretary general of NATO) accused his opponent, Traian Băsescu of using “violet flame” to target him with “waves of negative energy”. His wife, Mihaela said that he “was very badly attacked, he couldn’t concentrate” and lost the debate, then consequently, the election itself.
No wonder that this milieu produces some politicians on the extreme side, and not just ideologically.
MEP Diana (Iovanovici)-Şoşoacă is the embodiment of all that is wrong with Romania’s politics, this is a view shared by many of her political opponents, for example Renew MEP Eugen Tomac. She is also the proof that it’s not only corruption that hurts the image of the European Parliament.
Lawyer-Turned-Dictator-Turned-Arena Politician
A lawyer by profession, she entered the political scene almost accidentally, but quickly gained notoriety for her conspiracy theories.
As one of the most vocal anti-vaccine campaigners during the COVID-19 pandemic, Şoşoacă’s support grew exponentially as she regularly posted on social media, protesting the restriction measures, and refusing to wear masks.
One such key moment was when she protested in Iaşi against the planned restrictions during Romania’s greatest pilgrimage to Sfânta Parascheva (that included, among others, restricted access to the cathedral itself or sanitary measures like the prohibition on kissing the sarcophagus of the saint). Standing in the court of the cathedral, posting it live on Facebook, she declared that “it was her right”, “nobody could oppress her”, “there was nothing obligatory in God’s face except saying my God” and that “God told her that his followers didn’t wear masks”.
Facebook-activism never stopped to play an important role in her political strategy, there is rarely a picture of her on which she’s not holding her smartphone, often transmitting the events live.
She was a seemingly perfect match to the ethno-nationalist and anti-globalist AUR (Alliance for the Union of Romanians) Party and its rabble-rouser leader, George Simion, who, just like Şoşoacă, won places on the front pages of newspapers by stunts, outbursts, and entry bans (from Moldova and Ukraine).
Thanks to AUR’s surprise results in the December 2020 elections, Şoşoacă promptly got elected to Romania’s Senate as the AUR’s senator for Iaşi County but got expelled from the party merely three months later.
The official reason behind the step was that Şoşoacă failed to follow the party leadership’s strategy and decisions. In her views, she was expelled because the leaders of the party didn’t want to share the party’s resources (mainly money) with her.
In search for a political home, she joined the newly founded right-wing ultra-nationalist and populist S.O.S. Romania party. In no time, she became the party’s leader. She was joined by her (current, third) husband, Silvestru Şoşoacă, who became the deputy chairman of the small, but aspiring party.
Her leadership style caused tensions within the party right from the start, as former party members accused her of being “a dictator”. There were whispers about irregularities with the party’s finances, as well.
Unrestrained by Simion and the AUR’s leadership, Şoşoacă defined the course of S.O.S. Romania: antisemitic, Eurosceptic (though she prefers the term Eurorealist), a proponent of Greater Romania and a great supporter of Russia and China. One of the key demands is restoring all former Romanian territories to the country, that includes, among others, territories currently belonging to Ukraine, Hungary or Bulgaria.
Known for her radical ideas or conspiracy theories (once she accused the United States that it caused the 2023 Turkish earthquake with some sort of a “geologic weapon”), she’s not a stranger to causing public upheaval, either.
Hardly a few months go by between two stunts.
Barely having settled into her role as senator, in early 2021 she held a stand-up show in the Romanian Parliament, holding a big black garbage bag, shouting that Romanian authorities have killed Romanian citizens by the restrictions introduced during the pandemic.
In a similar stunt, she held a muzzle in front of her face. This act gathered many likes on her Facebook account.
The Export of the Stand-Up Politician
Fast forward to 2024, and Şoşoacă entered the European Parliament, on the list of her own S.O.S. Party. Her first contribution to the working of the institution was the suggestion that the building should be “blessed” and “purified” by a priest.
Probably remembering the success of her above mentioned garbage-bag-slash-muzzle-stunts, she repeated the performance on July 18, 2024, this time during a session of the European Parliament. While MEPs were debating on Ursula von der Leyen’s election, Şoşoacă muzzled herself, then shouted about the COVID pandemic and vaccines, and finally held up an Orthodox icon and repeated “In God we trust” over and over again. In the end, she had to be escorted out of the chamber.
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola announced a series of sanctions against her on October 9.
But let’s get back to a more chronological presentation of her political performances.
Not hiding her sympathies for Russia, she took part on the reception organized by the Russian Embassy in Bucharest on the occasion of Russia’s National Day, June 12, 2021. No wonder that Russia’s SPUTNIK News Agency chose her as “Romanian politician of the Year”.
Pro-Russia declarations are a permanent part of repertoire, let it be about supporting Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, demanding that the West stopped supplying weapons to Kyiv or expressing her admiration of the pro-Russian hacker-group Killnet.
A descendant of immigrants (her paternal grandparents lived in Skopje, FYROM), Şoşoacă is a staunch anti-immigration campaigner.
She’s also not alien to hate speech, as State Secretary of the Interior Ministry Raed Arafat learned it in November 2021, when Şoşoacă accused him “and his army of 90,000 Afghans and all sorts of immigrants” that he wanted to “enter our homes and vaccinate us”, urging Romanians to resort to “civic disobedience”. By the way, Raed Arafat is a Syrian-born Romanian, one of the most respected politicians for organizing the country’s rapid emergency response service, SMURD.
Still in her first year as senator, Italian TV channel RAI 1 tried to interview her about her antivaccine-views. At one point, the events spiralled out of hand and Şoşoacă and her husband, Silvestru took the crew hostage and released them only after about 8 hours, following the intervention of the Italian Embassy and the police. Silvestru Şoşoacă even bit a police officer’s hand and was later sentenced to 180 days in jail and RON18,000 fine.
In 2022, she was part of a small group of demonstrators, protesting against the demolition of a(n illegally constructed) church in Constanţa. Wearing a traditional embroidered shirt, strategically holding her smartphone as usually, Şoşoacă shouted accusations against the local government – and quicky found support in Constanţa’s notorious archbishop, IPS Teodosie (currently under investigation for corruption), a fellow COVID-denier and Putin-admirer.
2023 saw many small performances around the country, culminating in an altercation in the parliament between Şoşoacă and George Simion (the leader of her former party, AUR) during the vote on the next budget, that was a hair’s breadth away from turning into an actual fight.
Another “pearl” of that year was when on October 10, Şoşoacă protested against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky holding a speech in the Romanian parliament. She arrived to the session with a map of Greater Romania and declared that President Zelensky “was a Nazi” and had no right to be on Romanian soil.
Even being caught red handed doesn’t stop her from (verbally) attacking police officers. In March 2024, Senator Şoşoacă was caught speeding (driving at 110 km/h instead of 40 km/h) and driving without a license. She was fined for RON1485 (app. EUR 300). Instead of admitting guilt, Şoşoacă started to argue with the officers, threatening them and accusing them of trying to undermine-slash-sabotage her election campaign.
Come May and Şoşoacă found a chance to propagate her antisemitic views again. On May 14, 2024, the two houses of the Romanian Parliament held a joint, solemn meeting devoted to the celebration of the Day of Solidarity and Friendship between Romania and the State of Israel. Şoşoacă decided that the end of the speech of Silviu Vexler, MEP and president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania, was the perfect moment to applaud the Iron Guard (a militant revolutionary fascist movement in the interwar period, that mixed far-right ideas and antisemitism with Romanian Orthodox Christian mysticism), shouting “Trăiească Garda!” (app. Long live the Guard).
No election can go without Şoşoacă causing a scene, the 2024 European Parliamentary elections were no different. On June 12, accompanied by a few supporters, she tried to force her way into a building belonging to the Bucharest City Hall, where already counted ballots were stored. Şoşoacă tried to force her way through the cordon established by Romania’s Jandarmeria and when she didn’t succeed, she accused the officers of grabbing and tossing her.
Becoming Romania’s President: The Last Resort?
Maybe realizing that EP President Metsola would not give her enough room to spread her conspiracy theories, Şoşoacă decided to take her chances and run for president of Romania in the upcoming 2024 elections. According to some polls, she could count with the support about 15 percent of the voters, after all. Nowhere near enough to get elected, but maybe enough to gain more audience.
Romania’s Constitutional Court threw a monkey wrench in the works, though, when it removed Şoşoacă from the list of candidates for her anti-democratic and antisemitic declarations.
Showing her mature side and proving her dignified, presidential manners, Şoşoacă responded with an angry antisemitic outburst, accusing the European Union, Jewish people, the Americans and the French of plotting against her, along with the Constitutional Court itself, calling the judges “Stalinists and Nazis”, who “killed the Constitution”.
Then, she continued with expressing
her admiration of Romania’s infamous Iron Guard and its founder-leader, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, declaring: “From this moment, it is over with Romania, there is no more state, there is nothing. All I can say is long live the Legion and the Captain who were killed by the same Jewish power that was at work now. Shame on everyone.” Later, she declared herself a “national martyr”.
Following the decision of the Constitutional Court, Şoşoacă tried to get her name back on the list, but Romania’s Central Electoral Office deemed her application “inadmissible” as she failed to annex the required signatures supporting her candidature. Şoşoacă went on to accuse the complete Romanian political system with “playing theatre”.
Right now, it seems that Şoşoacă lost her chances to become Romania’s president in the nearby future.
She’ll probably lose her name, too, as her husband filed for divorce in February 2024 and threatened with banning her from using her married name. The marriage was reported to be already crumbling, but the final straw was that Şoşoacă illegally expelled her husband from the S.O.S. Romania Party. The reason? She allegedly didn’t like that Silvestru Şoşoacă danced with another woman.
But probably this won’t stop her from making use of the EU-wide audience provided by the European Parliament.
Unless Roberta Metsola finds a way to keep Şoşoacă’s theatrics under control, it’s time that MEPs get used to being constantly screamed at and live-streamed on Facebook.