{"id":425548,"date":"2025-05-05T12:31:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T10:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/05\/05\/elezioni-romania-simion-dan-primo-turno\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T13:40:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T11:40:14","slug":"ultra-nationalist-george-simion-wins-first-round-of-romanias-presidential-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/05\/05\/ultra-nationalist-george-simion-wins-first-round-of-romanias-presidential-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Ultra-nationalist George Simion wins first round of Romania’s presidential election"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – As predicted by the polls, the ultranationalist George Simion<\/strong> won (by a landslide) the first round of the Romanian presidential election<\/strong>. The leader of the radical right-wing party AUR<\/strong> picked up the political legacy of C\u0103lin Georgescu<\/strong>, the pro-Russian independent ousted from the electoral process in the severe political crisis that\u00a0shook the Balkan country for months. The runner-up, centrist Nicu\u0219or Dan<\/strong>, won slightly\u00a0over half of his support, narrowly edging out the government coalition candidate, Crin Antonescu<\/strong>. The\u00a0runoff puzzle<\/strong> now opens as the specter of a Euroskeptic president opposed to aid to Kyiv hovers over Bucharest.<\/p>\n

With all votes counted, the response from the ballot box<\/a> could not have been clearer. The first round of presidential elections<\/strong> yesterday (May 4) was overwhelmingly won by populist and pro-Kremlin far-right.<\/strong> The 38-year-old George Simion,<\/strong> head of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR)<\/strong> – an ultranationalist and anti-migrant formation, highly critical of the EU and support for Ukrainian resistance (so much so that he was banned from Kyiv last year) – and a supporter of Trumpism in Maga sauce, took home 40.96 percent of the vote.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“This is not just an election victory: it is a victory for you, for the Romanian people, for our dignity<\/strong>,” Simion said in a pre-recorded video message broadcast at the AUR\u00a0headquarters last night. “It is the triumph of those who have not lost hope<\/strong>, those who still believe in a free, respected, and sovereign Romania,” he added.<\/p>\n

\"Nicusor<\/a>
Bucharest mayor, Nicu\u0219or Dan (photo: Daniel Mihailescu\/Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The center-right candidate,\u00a0Nicu\u0219or Dan<\/strong>, followed at a distance, securing\u00a020.99 percent <\/strong>of the votes.<\/strong> The former mayor of the capital surpassed by less than a point Crin Antonescu<\/strong>, chosen as the common name by the forces that make up the governing coalition<\/strong> (the liberals of the NLP, the social democrats of the PSD, and the party representing the Hungarian minority, the UDMR), who instead stopped at 20.07 percent<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The two competed for the same electoral pool, and the majority leaders should publicly endorse\u00a0Dan. The leadership of the USR<\/strong> — the main liberal-conservative party that is in opposition — favored the<\/strong> former Bucharest mayor\u00a0over\u00a0Elena Lasconi<\/strong> (who yesterday stopped at 2.68 percent<\/strong>), dumped by her\u00a0party<\/a> in early April precisely because of Dan’s better chances of making it to the run-off.<\/p>\n

It was a remarkable\u00a0performance\u00a0by Simion, considering that pre-election polls put him at around 30 percent. However, it is not a bolt from the blue as it reflects\u00a0perfect continuity with the results<\/strong> (judged sensational even at the time) of the November round\u00a0<\/strong>when the independent candidate C\u0103lin Georgescu<\/strong> had made a splash with the same pro-Russian and ultranationalist political platform<\/strong>. However, due to heavy Russian interference<\/strong> detected by intelligence services,\u00a0the Constitutional Court\u00a0canceled the entire election process in December<\/a>. Georgescu\u00a0was then permanently banned <\/strong>from\u00a0the presidential vote\u00a0in\u00a0early March<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"C\u0103lin<\/a>
Former presidential candidate C\u0103lin Georgescu (photo: Mihai Barbu\/Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Simion inherited\u00a0Georgescu<\/strong>‘s political mantle, further increasing the Sovereignist vote base by riding on the wave of\u00a0popular protest against the annulment of the November elections.<\/strong>\u00a0At the time, the two ultra-right groups had together garnered about 36 percent. Should they win the runoff, AUR’s leader (who could also count on the 13.05 percent of the other national-populist candidate, former socialist premier Victor Ponta<\/strong>) has promised to appoint Georgescu as prime minister<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

European sovereignists greeted yesterday’s result enthusiastically, starting with colleagues from the Conservatives and Reformists<\/strong>, on whose benches AUR sits (and of which Simion is vice-president), along with Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) and the Polish PiS. FdI’s\u00a0Nicola Procaccini<\/strong>, ECR’s co-leader in Strasbourg, congratulated a campaign that has “electrified Romania.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

ECR Group Co-Chairmen @@NProcaccini<\/a> and @PatrykJaki<\/a> congratulate @georgesimion<\/a> on leading the first round of Romania\u2018s presidential race. pic.twitter.com\/XbvXHkPAWE<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 ECR Group (@ecrgroup) May 4, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The second round <\/strong>of presidential elections is on May 18.<\/strong> The question on everyone’s mind is whether the pro-European parties will be able to convince the majority of voters to support Dan\u00a0to prevent a Moscow sympathizer from ending up running the Balkan state on the border with Ukraine (where what is supposed to become Europe’s biggest NATO base is under construction). If that were to happen, Romania would join the ranks of Union members openly critical of Brussels’ support for Kyiv,<\/strong> and together with Hungary and Slovakia, could create quite a few headaches for the rest of the 27 member states\u00a0in the European Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The AUR leader inherited Georgescu’s mantle and nearly doubled the votes of the centrist candidates, who fought over the same electoral pool. The runoff is scheduled for May 18 with former Bucharest mayor Nicu\u0219or Dan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":425537,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[30313,28130,28231,29785,29786,30503,30987],"class_list":["post-425548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-aur-en","tag-calin-georgescu-en","tag-marcel-ciolacu-en","tag-presidential-romania-en","tag-usr-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425548"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":425581,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425548\/revisions\/425581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}