The unexpected victor of Sunday’s first round of Romania’s presidential election was an independent who, until two years ago, belonged to the country’s largest far-right party.
The election’s second-place finisher will now face Calin Georgescu in a runoff.
However, what is the future of Romania, who is Georgescu, and how did he win votes?
How did the election in Romania turn out?
According to the Central Electoral Bureau, 9.4 million people, or 52.4 percent of Romania’s eligible voters, cast ballots overall.
According to partial election results, Georgescu defeated opinion polls and won first place with 23 percent of the vote after 98 percent of the ballots were counted.
Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, who received almost 20% of the vote, came in second. Romania’s Social Democratic Party (PSD) is led by Ciolacu.
With almost 19 percent of the vote, Elena Lasconi of the center-right Save Romania Union (USR) party comes in third.
With 14% of the vote, George Simion of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) is in fourth place. This is the second term of the outgoing president, Klaus Iohannis of the center-right National Liberal Party (PNL), who has held the office since 2014.
Currently, Romania is governed by an unstable coalition between the PNL and the PSD.
Calin Georgescu is who? Georgescu, 62, is a right-wing independent candidate. He mostly used social media, especially TikTok, to run his campaign.
He has worked for Romania’s Ministry of Environment and has a degree in soil science, according to his website.
In addition to being a professor at a university, he served as the executive director of the Global Sustainable Index Institute from 2015 to 2016 and as a special rapporteur in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2010 to 2012.
Prior to his departure in 2022 due to disagreements with senior coalition members over his stance on Russia and NATO, he served as the prime minister of the far-right opposition alliance AUR.
He was the prime minister of the far-right opposition coalition AUR before departing in 2022 due to disagreements with top coalition members over his stance on Russia and NATO.
In an interview, he stated that Romania should follow “Russian wisdom,” even though he hasn’t stated outright that he supports Russia.
Georgescu referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as one of the world’s few real leaders in an interview conducted in 2022. He called NATO’s ballistic missile defense barrier at the Romanian military installation Deveselu a “shame of diplomacy” in a 2021 interview.
Additionally, he stated that NATO would not defend any of its members in the event of a Russian invasion. Since 2004, Romania has been a part of NATO.