Călin Georgescu, close to neo-legionaries

New revelations question the independence and political past of Călin Georgescu, a candidate who entered the presidential final. The evidence suggests a close connection with neo-legionary groups, raising concerns about the ideological influences on his campaign and the nature of his supporters.

Călin Georgescu is actively supported by the "Gogu Puiu and the Outlaws of Dobrogea" Association, an organization accused of neo-legionaryism. Eugen Sechila, a former member of the Foreign Legion and coordinator of the paramilitary camps organized by this association, has a close relationship with the candidate. Moreover, Sechila is the husband of Elena Sechila (formerly Puiu), the niece of Gogu Puiu, a symbol of the legionary movement in Romania. The "Gogu Puiu" Association was identified by Europe Free as a satellite organization of the "Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu" Foundation, considered the successor of the neo-legionary party "Totul pentru Ţară".

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This association's social media posts are laudatory of "Captain" Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the leader of the Iron Guard, and other controversial figures. For example, Elena Sechila claimed in her posts that "A Romanian absolutely must be a legionnaire".

Eugen Sechila, described as being involved in organizing ideologically-oriented paramilitary camps, supports the introduction of official military training in high schools. In Georgescu's electoral campaign, Sechila centralized the signatures of supporters and was an important player in the campaign strategy. According to Georgescu's wealth declarations, the ties between the two also seem to include financial aspects, with the candidate's wife receiving money at an address used to centralize the signatures.

A recent report by the Elie Wiesel Institute highlights the fact that the camps organized by the "Gogu Puiu and the Outlaws of Dobrogea" Association combine physical and ideological training, promoting the rehabilitation of legionary figures and ideas. Also, in 2023, such a camp was named after Constantin Oprişan, leader of the Brotherhood of the Cross.

Sources close to former political prisoners who were part of the Legionary Movement told us that Elena Sechila was an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and her mother, Gogu Puiu's daughter, collaborated with the Securitate. According to documents published in 2008 by the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives and quoted by România Liberă in its edition of 4.10.2008, Zoe Rădulescu, the daughter of legionary and former political prisoner Gogu Puiu, provided information about her relatives and about people involved in the distribution of banned books. Zoe Rădulescu allegedly signed a collaboration agreement with the Securitate on November 25, 1976 and provided information about the activities of the legionnaires in the country and abroad, under the pseudonym Mădălina Martha or Mantha.

Former presidential advisor from 1996-2000, Zoe Petre, said in 2008 that Zoe Rădulescu was a child born in prison and attributed her collaboration with the Securitate to the fact that "she had a very hard life" and "lived under the pressure of the political prisoner file that her mother also had", according to the cited source

According to the article in România Liberă, in the CNSAS file, the colonel who recruited Zoe Rădulescu notes that, "without reservations, the candidate provided us with information about some people who were in our attention, with whom she was related - completely confirming the information we have". Moreover, according to the documents filed with the Bucharest Court, on January 12, 1980, she allegedly gave an informative note to the Securitate in Constanţa, in which she allegedly said that a friend, Vlad Constantinescu, a translator at the State Archives, had introduced books into the country by authors banned by the communists, such as: Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Grigory Zinoviev, George Orwell or Trotsky. The information allegedly reached Zoe Rădulescu through a teacher, Roza, and later the books reached several friends of the translator.

Călin Georgescu's complex connections with controversial personalities and organizations raise serious questions about his political integrity and the values promoted by his campaign. In a context in which neo-legionnaire propaganda is associated with Holocaust denial and the rehabilitation of questionable historical figures, these revelations require additional investigations and public clarifications.