Radical-right Simion in the first round presidential elections Romania

The radical-right and Eurosceptic George Simion is well on its way to win the first round of the Romanian presidential election. This is apparent from counting the voices that here can be followed live. Counted by around 91 percent of the votes is the profit that Simion is even greater than expected in polls and exit polls. So far he can count on forty percent of all votes.

Exciting is now the question of who will compete against Simion in the second round, on May 18. Will it be Crin Antonescu, which is pushed forward by the middle parties and participates on behalf of the current Social Democratic and center -right government parties? Or will it be Nicusor, the current mayor of Bucharest, with a progressive, pro-European and anti-corruption story? Antonescu seems to be at the forefront, but the two don’t avoid each other. It is important that the voices of the Romanian diaspora still have to be counted. That can still yield a lot of votes for then.

The presidential elections in Romania are loaded because the Constitutional Court declared an earlier round invalid in November. Then the ultra -nationalist and partyless presidential candidate Calin Georgescu received 23 percent of the votes, while in the polls he got around five percent. Later, research by the security services showed that influencers were paid to promote Georgescu on Tiktok, and that there would have been Russian interference. Yet even after all the commotion, Georgescu is still popular in Romania. He later declared his support to Simion, who said he was representing the partyless ex-president candidate.

Although the victory of ultranationalist Georgescu was declared invalid, it exposed that many Romanians may move their gaze from Europe to Russia. According to NATO, the neighboring country of Ukraine is important for the defense of the so -called Oostflank. The country spends more than the required 2 percent of GDP to Defense, supplied anerated guns to Ukraine and concluded a ten -year security agreement with that country. But if it is up to Simion, there is no longer any military support to neighboring Ukraine that is at war with Russia.

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