Voting starts today, including at polling stations in the West Midlands, in Romania’s second attempt at a presidential election.
Russian interference: Election annulled
The nation, which shares a border with Ukraine, is staging a re-do after the first go, in December, was annulled by its top court.
Judges ruled frontrunner, ultranationalist Călin Georgescu, until then a virtual unknown, had benefited from illicit online Russian influence and illegal campaign financing.
You may have missed it but this actually happened. In Romania in 2024. A Western democracy with 19m people. An EU member state and NATO member.
Intelligence revealed, among other things, that 800 Russian TikTok accounts had been backing Georgescu.
The subtext from Russia was clear: “We’re occupying parts of Ukraine – and Romania could be next.”
Banned from running
As you’d expect, Georgescu is now banned from running – along with a handful of other candidates, including far-right European Parliament member Diana Șoșoacă.
In the rescheduled election, the first round of voting, to narrow the field down to a final two candidates, takes place on May 4 with the deciding round on May 18.
The world is watching
The stakes have never been higher. Security, in particular cyber security, is at the top of Romanian authorities’ agenda.
Romania’s reputation is on the line, and the world – including Brussels and Washington – is watching as the battle lines fall in all too familiar places: ultranationalist Trumpian populism versus the pro-EU centrist establishment.
On the right
Leading all Romania’s recent polls is George Simion, 38, the hard-right leader of the Romanian parliament’s second-largest party, the Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR). He has been banned from Moldova and Ukraine because of his links with Russia.
Simion’s main rival on the right, according to recent polls, is Victor Ponta, Romania’s prime minister from 2012 to 2015 for the Social Democrats. He quit after a nightclub fire that killed 64 people. He is now running as an independent, also hoping to attract Georgescu’s voters.
The centrists
On the pro-EU centrist side are Crin Antonescu and Nicușor Dan. Each sit second or third, behind Simion, depending on which poll you look at.
Antonescu is running as a joint candidate for Romania’s mainstream parties: the National Liberals (PNL), the Social Democrats (PSD) and the Hungarian Minority party (UDMR). He is known for a brief stint as interim president over a decade ago.
Dan is an independent candidate who has been the mayor of Romania’s capital Bucharest since 2020.
Complacent centrists versus angry right-wingers
The greatest challenge for Romania’s centrist candidates will be mobilising a voter base prone to complacency.
These voters include the 1.3 million Romanians living in the UK, for whom voting opens on today, May 2, at the 105 polling stations set up across Britain.
Meanwhile the leftwing candidates’ main threat, Simion, is presenting as relaxed. Like Trump ahead of the US election last year, Simion failed to appear in any televised debates.
And his voters are engaged. Many are backers of Georgescu, who they see as the innocent victim of Romanian state interference. Those who don’t jump to Ponta are likely to go to Simion. Some say all he has to do is show up.
MAGA-style populism or centrist status quo?
By the morning of May 19, barring further Russian mischief, we’ll know who Romanians have chosen.
With Russia continuing to wage war on the other side of Romania’s northern and eastern borders, this election result could potentially determine the future not just of Romania but of what used to be Europe’s Soviet-aligned Eastern bloc.
