Romania: high-tension runoff between George Simion and Nicușor Dan

Brussels – On the Super Sunday election of the Old Continent, the polls will be open in Poland, Portugal, and Romania, with the specter of a substantial rise of the radical right intimidating Brussels in no small measure.

In Bucharest, tensions are sky-high for the presidential runoff that will see the ultranationalist George Simion challenge the centrist Nicușor Dan, mayor of the capital. Polls give the two candidates very close in a head-to-head contest on a razor’s edge. Whoever wins will decide on international issues and form a new government to try to pull the Balkan country out of the abyss of political crisis into which it has plunged in recent months.

The Romanian political saga

Next Sunday (May 18), the next episode in the almost science-fiction-like saga of the Romanian presidential race will air. Over the past six months, the politics of the Balkan state — an EU and NATO member — have been turned upside down following a severe crisis that is far from over. It began with the first round of elections to change the republic’s leadership in November last year.

Surprisingly, the independent, ultranationalist, and pro-Russian candidate Călin Georgescu overwhelmingly won that vote. However,  the Constitutional Court annulled it in early December due to heavy Russian interference and irregularities in Georgescu’s conduct. A couple of months ago, Georgescu was even ousted from the election.

George Simion, the leader of the radical right-wing party AUR, picked up his political legacy. He triumphed in the first round of the new presidential elections held on May 4, securing almost 41 percent of the vote. The 38-year-old national populist won a landslide of votes by fueling the flames of discontent burning in Romania, a young democracy grappling with major economic problems whose citizens have lost faith in state institutions, considered the emblem of an irreparably corrupt system.

What the polls say

Simion was, until recently, given as the big favorite for the runoff on the day after tomorrow. Yet, in recent days, Nicușor Dan‘s lead over his opponent has been shrinking, bringing the capital’s mayor closer to a head-to-head (in the first round, he stopped just below 21 percent). According to surveys, both candidates now range between 48 and 52 percent, with a slight advantage for the AUR leader but falling within the margin of error.

Simion (who has no experience in government and has skipped almost all televised debates, campaigning mainly online) is convinced that he already has the presidency in his pocket.  However,  if projections are to be believed,  the race seems more open than ever for the mayor of Bucharest, who was elected in 2020 and confirmed last year. In the end, voter turnout could be the game changer: according to analysts, Dan’s chances will be all the greater the more voters go to the polls, including those in the diaspora (about a fifth of the total).

The international consequences of the vote

Several observers see Sunday’s vote as a referendum on Bucharest’s international placement. Romania could shift overnight to decidedly more euroskeptic positions should the leader of the ultra-right, allied in Europe with Fratelli d’Italia — he says Giorgia Meloni’s government is “a model” for him — and the Polish PiS within the Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and an admirer of the authoritarian Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán.

A big fan of Donald Trump, Simion would also join the roster of European Council members (such as Orbán and Slovak premier Robert Fico) who continue to obstructsupport for Kyiv. However, he is trying to shield himself from the accusations of closeness to the Kremlin that marked the fate of his “mentor” Georgescu: Russia “is the biggest risk for Romania,” he said just yesterday, speaking to reporters in the corridors of the European Parliament.

We have friends, we have allies, but the most important thing is that we have God!!

Thank you very much, Lioness @GiorgiaMeloni !
Together toward victory!

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CPP A1B1C1D1E1 TUR2 pic.twitter.com/v4krCeTaio

– George Simion (@georgesimion) May 14, 2025

“But an even greater risk is to have a split in the free world,” he added, arguing that Bucharest’s Euro-Atlantic alignment is not in question: “We have three pillars at the base of our security strategy: our strategic partnership with the United States, membership in NATO, and membership in the EU.” He reasoned that, if anything, it is necessary to fight the idea of a European federal superstate in the name of a union of sovereign nations.

The domestic challenges

Domestically, however, an important decision that will fall to the next president will be the appointment of a new prime minister to fill the vacant post after Premier Marcel Ciolacu‘s resignation. The Social Democratic leader stepped down following the election defeat suffered by the candidate backed by the government coalition (his PSD, the liberals of the PNL, and the party representing the Hungarian minority, the UDMR), Crin Antonescu.

And precisely here —  between the runoff and the executive’s future– another political issue seems to be emerging. The PLN and the liberal conservatives of the USR (who, to endorse him, dumped their leader last month) support Dan, a 55-year-old mathematician who entered the election as an independent.

But what is deafening for the pro-European forces is the silence of the Social Democrats, who have refused to offer their endorsement to the mayor of Bucharest. Even the European family of Ciolacu’s party, the PES, went over their heads to urge Romanian voters to support the pro-EU and pro-Ukraine candidate. According to media reports circulating in Romania, the PSD is reportedly considering establishing a parliamentary majority with the AUR.

After all, Simion declared that, if elected, he would seek as broad a consensus as possible to pull the country out of the spiral of instability. After initially advocating the possibility of appointing Georgescu as premier, he has recently suggested that he could pragmatically dialogue with Dan himself.