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George Simion hopes to do what pro-Russian candidate Călin Georgescu was prevented from doing: claim the presidency and add Romania to the list of EU countries led by far-right figures.
On Sunday, Romanians will vote in the first round of the country's rescheduled presidential election. The country has been in chaos since the Supreme Court annulled the first attempt to hold the election late last year. Calin Georgescu, a far-right activist and Putin admirer, surprisingly came out on top in the first round, but it was later revealed that he had received help from Moscow.
Enter George Simion, leader of the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) party, who came in only fourth in the canceled presidential elections held on November 24.
Now, polls show him as the favorite to reach the runoff on May 18 - and potentially win it.
The Romanian president wields considerable influence over the country's foreign policy, representing it in the European Council. With Simioni on track for the presidency, fears have been raised in Brussels that the bloc could soon face another "enfant terrible" - akin to Hungary's Viktor Orban or Slovakia's Robert Fico.
However, the situation could turn out a little differently. Romanian policy towards the EU often relies on the country's current center-left government. With Simion at the helm, Romania risks speaking two languages in Brussels.
TikTok campaign
Like Georgescu, Simion is making his case to voters online, largely avoiding mainstream media outlets, opting instead to appear on friendly podcasts. On TikTok, he has an impressive 1.3 million followers - far surpassing the second-biggest Romanian politician on the platform, leftist Victor Ponta, who has 240,000 followers.
With Georgescu's exclusion from the race, Simion quickly emerged as the natural heir to his political cause, while distancing himself from some of Georgescu's more extreme views.
Simion, 38, first became known as a vocal advocate for unification between Romania and Moldova, a small former Soviet republic with a large Romanian-speaking population - a cause he has since abandoned.
At the European level, Simion has aligned with parties such as Giorgia Meloni's Fratelli d'Italia and Poland's Law and Justice party, through the European Conservatives and Reformists group. However, Simion and the AUR differ greatly from their European counterparts on key issues such as support for Ukraine and their approach to the EU.
Simion opposes aid to Ukraine, citing what he calls the mistreatment of the country's Romanian minority. He is banned from entering both Moldova and Ukraine on suspicion of pro-Russian sympathies - charges he has repeatedly denied.
Simion says he does not want Romania to leave NATO, but seeks to “strengthen the alliance under American leadership.” He envisions a reformed Europe, free from what he calls “unelected bureaucrats,” and compares the current EU to a “new Soviet Union.”
While Simion calls himself a conservative, his party has more extremist views. Local investigative portal PressOne uncovered efforts by AUR members to recruit neo-Nazis in Romania and Moldova.
If Simion does win the first round, he is expected to face a close race in the runoff. Polls show a close race for second place ahead of Sunday's vote between the ruling coalition candidate Crin Antonescu (formerly affiliated with the EPP), the independent mayor of Bucharest, Nicușor Dan, and former prime minister and PSD leader Victor Ponta, who is also running as an independent.
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