Hard-right candidate wins first round of Romania’s election rerun

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Hard-right leader George Simion was the clear winner of the first round of Romania’s presidential election vote, and will face a pro-EU centrist in the run-off on May 18.

With nearly 99 per cent of domestic votes and more than 80 per cent of diaspora votes counted late on Sunday, Simion was a runaway winner with 40.3 per cent of the vote, according to Romania’s Central Election Bureau.

Bucharest’s centrist independent mayor Nicușor Dan came second with 20.9 per cent, and Crin Antonescu, another centrist who was the joint candidate of the three parties in the governing coalition, finished third with 20.4 per cent of the domestic vote. Dan also led Antonescu by a comfortable margin in the diaspora vote, which is counted separately.

The vote was rerun after the first-round victory of ultranationalist politician Călin Georgescu was annulled by the constitutional court over allegations of Russian interference. Georgescu, an ally of Simion, was subsequently barred from standing in the new ballot.

The cancellation of November’s result was sharply criticised by US President Donald Trump’s administration, with vice-president JD Vance saying it was an example of Europe’s liberal elite failing to uphold democratic freedoms.

Simion said in a post on Facebook: “Romanians are the winners. Thank you!”

Antonescu said: “It is an irreversible result . . . I leave this ordeal with my head held high. The people’s vote must be respected.” He did not endorse either of the remaining two candidates.

A final tally is expected to be announced on Monday morning. Nearly 1mn Romanians outside the country voted, most for Dan or Simion. There were 11 candidates in total.

Costin Ciobanu, a researcher at Denmark’s Aarhus university, said the first-round result reflected a “second electoral shock for the ruling coalition [after Georgescu’s win in November’s annulled vote]. It’s a repudiation of the mainstream alliance in Romania”.

With Simion as president, Romania’s relative political stability of the past several years could be jeopardised. It could also move closer to other eastern EU states such as Hungary and Slovakia, which openly question the bloc’s values and have unclear ties to countries such as Russia.

The popular support for Simion, leader of the nationalist AUR party whose campaign was endorsed by Georgescu, is a further sign of Romanian voters’ deep disenchantment with the mainstream political elites, which have shared power since the end of communism.

Simion, a pro-Trump rightwing populist, told the FT on Sunday that if elected president he would try to bring back Georgescu to a leadership position to reflect his popularity.

“In a democracy, you let the people decide,” Simion said. “So as a president, I can change the members of the constitutional court, the members of the secret services, so I can assure fair elections and I can be a mediator to find the majority in the parliament. This is the way we can think of having him as . . . prime minister.”

In the second round, Dan is expected to try to form an alliance of all mainstream forces to defeat Simion, but may struggle to do so.

“I’m not too worried about such an alliance,” Simion said. “This is only a smoke bomb, a diversion [from the fact] that I’m not the extremist, the hooligan, the isolationist they are portraying me to be.”

In the second round Simion could pick up voters from supporters of former premier Victor Ponta, a leftwing politician turned Trump fan, who won 13.3 per cent on Sunday of the vote according to the nearly complete results.

Georgescu, who had polled well over 40 per cent before he was barred from running again in March, and Simion cast their ballots together in a Bucharest suburb, where some supporters chanted pro-Georgescu slogans.

The annulment thrust Romania into a political crisis at a sensitive moment. Its credit rating outlook has been cut to negative by Moody’s. And it is in dire need of reforms as it struggles to tackle the EU’s highest budget deficit.

A key contributor to Nato efforts to contain Russian manoeuvres in the Black Sea region, Romania is an important route for exports from Ukraine and has also offered military aid for its neighbour.

As voting proceeded on Sunday, a Russian hacker group claimed to have shut down the websites of several ministries and Antonescu’s campaign page. But the denial-of-service attack was foiled quickly, the national cyber security centre said.