The candidate has changed but the extreme right remains in the lead: five months after the shock cancellation of the first round of the presidential election, Romania confirmed in a new vote on Sunday its nationalist turn.
The head of the Aur party, George Simion, is credited with 30 to 33% of the vote, according to two polls at the exit of the ballot box.
However, it will be “Probably beaten in the second round“On May 18, because he had few voice reserves, commented for AFP the professor of political science Sergiu Miscoiu, predicting a tight race.
Eleven contenders in total broke out an essentially protocol but influence in foreign policy, in this EU member country of 19 million inhabitants who have become an essential pillar of NATO since the Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
The surprise victory in November of Calin Georgescu, a former senior official accused by his detractors of being favorable to the Kremlin, had worried in the west of the continent and plunged Romania into political turmoil. The Constitutional Court invalidated the vote and excluded the sixties of this new race, after a massive campaign on Tiktok tainted with suspicions of Russian interference.
