FLASH
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The nationalist leader is expected to qualify for the presidential runoff on May 18, with establishment figure Crin Antonescu and the mayor of central Bucharest, Nicușor Dan, currently battling for second place…
George Simion, the far-right leader of the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, is projected to win the first round of Romania's presidential election, with more than 30 percent of the vote, according to exit polls.
It was not immediately clear which candidate would come in second, with establishment figure Crin Antonescu and downtown Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan battling to face Simion in the runoff. Former Prime Minister Victor Ponta is expected to finish in fourth place, polls show.
The poll projections are not official results, which are expected to start coming out from Romania's electoral authority in the coming hours. The polls also do not reflect votes cast by the Romanian diaspora abroad.
The election results are being closely watched in Brussels and Washington, as Romania has become the latest battleground between the far right and the political establishment. Simion has unapologetically described himself as a supporter of US President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement.
Sunday's vote was part of a repeat of the election that Romania's Supreme Court ordered in December, after it annulled the November vote due to allegations of illegal campaigning and possible Russian interference in favor of Calin Georgescu, an ardent ultranationalist who came out of nowhere to win the first round.
Simion hoped to capitalize on the electoral support Georgescu generated last year by saying there would be a job for him, perhaps even as prime minister.
Challengers
Among the candidates vying to face Simion in the second round, Dan and Antonescu are neck and neck in all exit polls.
Dani is an independent candidate who has been mayor of Bucharest, the capital of Romania, since 2020. A mathematician, he entered activism and politics in the late 1990s, after returning from Paris, where he had completed his doctoral studies. His activism aimed to oppose the “real estate mafia” in an effort to preserve green spaces and heritage sites in Bucharest.
In 2015, he founded the Union Save Bucharest, a political party that later became the Union Save Romania (USR), shifting its focus from the local to the national arena. He left the party in 2017. The USR leadership last month dropped their candidate Elena Lasconi in favor of Dan, arguing that he had a better chance of qualifying for the runoff than Lasconi.
Antonescu is running as the joint candidate of Romania's main establishment parties: the Social Democrats (PSD), the National Liberals (PNL) and the Hungarian minority party (UDMR).
A former PNL leader, Antonescu is best known for his tenure as interim president a dozen years ago, after the Romanian parliament suspended then-President Traian Băsescu from office.
An attempt to oust Basescu later failed, leaving Antonescu with a tarnished image. He has not held any political office in the past decade. / Adapted from Politico Pamphlet /
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