Romania is turning the page on its unprecedented political crisis as it comes to terms with the firm victory of independent pro-Western Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan in Sunday’s tense presidential elections.
Dan made a dramatic comeback from the first round, overcoming hard-right candidate George Simion with 53,60 % of votes versus 46,40% in what former Romanian President Traian Basescu called “Romania’s choice between the West and the East”.
Dan also beat the entire Romanian political establishment running as an independent candidate on a reform and anti-corruption platform.
In a disappointing night for Europe’s nationalist hard-right movements, two crucial central and eastern European elections took place in parallel in Romania and Poland.
Romanians turned out in record numbers to make their choice in one of the most tense and divided political moments in Romania’s post-communist history, seen as a virtual referendum in NATO’s eastern flank country.
Ultimately, 6 million Romanians sent a strong pro-EU and pro-NATO message, bringing a major, galvanising sigh of relief for the EU, Ukraine, and the Republic of Moldova.
Romania’s decisive vote is now certainly being watched in Poland, where another capital mayor, the candidate of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform party, Rafal Trzaskowski, won the first round of the Polish presidential elections, followed by Law and Justice-endorsed conservative candidate Karol Nawrocki.
However, the 5 million votes given to Simion marked a deep fracture in Romanian society and underlined his concession speech, where Simion warned that “this is just the beginning.”
That is why, in his victory speech, president-elect Dan reached out to Simion’s voters, saying they have “his full respect” and inviting them to “build Romania together”.
On Sunday, Simion won the diaspora votes, 55% to 44%, beating Dan in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Austria.
Yet Dan won an overwhelming 88% of the votes in the Republic of Moldova, where the Romanian vote was seen as existential for the country’s pro-Western course.
Dan also won in the United States, Canada, and surprisingly in Russia, Iran and China. He further scored a victory in Hungary with 92% of the votes, mirroring the same overwhelming vote in his favour by the Hungarian minority of Romania, as Simion ultimately failed to convince Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to endorse him after the leaders of the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania called the AUR leader a “charlatan”.
‘People have had enough of elections’
As soon as he is sworn in, the president-elect will begin the process of appointing a new prime minister following the resignation of the current coalition government, after their big-tent candidate was beaten by Dan, who leapfrogged into the second round together with Simion.
In addition to the destabilising political crisis of the last months, Romania is now also facing economic turmoil due to its budget deficits, which is now Dan’s immediate priority.
The morning after his historic win, which triggered national celebrations and congratulatory messages from European leaders, the unassuming president-elect, who pledged decency and honesty in the fiery campaign, walked down the street alone when he was met by a TV news crew.
“Now I am going to get my daughter from school, I promised her nothing would change in her life if I win the elections,” Dan answered when asked about what’s next. “Then I am back for more calls with European officials and then I will meet interim Romanian president Bolojan later on.”
But then he issued a stark warning to the Romanian political establishment that, even if immediate political stability is a priority, it would take weeks until he appoints a new prime minister because, as he said, “I don’t just want to appoint a prime minister, I want to be certain that the new government’s programme will be in agreement with what Romania stands for.”
In another interview, Dan also warned against early elections, which Simion may now claim to capitalise on his 5 million-strong votes, saying, “Romania cannot afford early elections.”
“People have had enough of elections, the private businesses and our foreign partners have had enough of instability. We must have a president who works with the elected parliament to have a stable government for the next three and a half years,” he explained.
The current government coalition parties announced on Monday that they are beginning internal processes to formulate their political strategies for the upcoming talks with president-elect Dan on a future government.
Simion: ‘Alone against all’
In another sigh of relief for the divided, tense Romanian society, Simion walked back from his multiple warnings and threats that an election fraud was allegedly being set up to stop him and that, as a result, he would set off a plan of massive protests across the country.
The election night tensions rose when Simion declared himself the winner despite the exit polls showing him losing, counting on the diaspora vote and the reliability of exit polls as proven by the shock win of ultranationalist Calin Georgescu in the first round of the annulled presidential elections last year.
But when the final official results arrived, Simion congratulated his opponent in a subdued tone, but firm in his perspective.
“We will continue to represent the sovereignist conservative patriotic movement in Romania. We lost this battle, but we have not lost our war – and we will never lose it,” he said.
“We were alone against a whole system, alone against all,” Simion concluded in his late-night speech, which closed the unprecedented political vortex that gripped Romania for months.
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