George Simion, the candidate of the right-wing nationalist Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), won a landslide victory in the first round of Romania’s presidential election on Sunday. Simion secured 40.3 per cent of the vote, far ahead of Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan, who came second with 20.74 per cent. The governing coalition’s joint candidate, Crin Antonescu, finished third with 20.34 per cent.
Romanians cast their votes amid the worst democratic crisis in the country’s modern history, following a controversial decision by the constitutional court last December to annul the results of the first round of the presidential race. At the time, hard-right outsider and EU- and NATO-sceptic Călin Georgescu had won with 22 per cent of the vote, while AUR’s Simion placed fourth and pledged to back Georgescu in the second round. The court justified its ruling by citing alleged Russian interference, though many viewed it as an attempt by establishment parties to retain power.
Among others, US Vice President JD Vance criticized the decision, likening it to Soviet-era practices. ‘If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with,’ he remarked in his famous Munich speech. US billionaire Elon Musk also sharply criticized the ruling, labelling the president of the constitutional court a ‘tyrant’.
As preliminary results came in on Sunday, Simion declared: ‘I am here to restore constitutional order.’ He added, ‘I want democracy, I want normalcy, and I have a single objective: to give back to the Romanian people what was taken from them and to place at the centre of decision-making the ordinary, honest, dignified people.’
Georgescu, who appeared alongside Simion at a polling station in Bucharest, described the vote rerun as ‘a fraud orchestrated by those who have made deceit the only state policy,’ but said he was there to ‘acknowledge the power of democracy, the power of the vote that frightens the system, that terrifies the system.’
After acknowledging the results, the governing coalition’s joint candidate—whose alliance includes the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ)—Crin Antonescu said supporters could decide for themselves which of the remaining candidates aligns more closely with the values he had promoted during the campaign. He refused to say whom he would vote for on 18 May, deflecting journalists’ questions, but thanked his supporters and encouraged voter participation. He also admitted that the results appeared ‘irreversible’.
The second round of the election is scheduled for 18 May between the two leading candidates, Simion and Dan. The Romanian presidency carries a five-year mandate and holds significant decision-making powers in national security and foreign policy.
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