Head of state
Romania chooses: right-wing populist or pro-European?
Election choice in Romania. In the final round of the presidential election, the right-wing populist Simion and the pro-European Dan are in the race. The voices of the abroad are likely to be decisive.
In Romania, the runoff election for the presidency started on Sunday. It is decided whether the EU-skeptical right-wing populist George Simion or the Liberal Conservative Pro-European Nicusor Dan will become the country in the future.
The urn gang is considered a choice of direction – also with a view to the Russian attack war against neighboring Ukraine. Simion sees support for Ukraine critically, then the position of the EU represents. In the surveys carried out in the country, the two candidates were recently on par.
Voices of the abroad can be decisive
However, the forecasts do not take into account the options of the Romanians chosen abroad. In the past, these had also decided election results in tight conditions. Their number is likely to be significantly more than one million. In the first round of elections on March 4, Simion received around 60 percent of the votes of the foreign ranks – 20 percentage points more than in Germany.
The runoff election began abroad on Friday. Until late Saturday evening, more than 700,000 Romanians had already cast their vote. In addition, a twice as high voter turnout was evident abroad as in the first round. A total of 17.9 million voters are called for election.
Simion wants to rule with Georgescu
In the first round of the election, Simion came to first place, but had missed the absolute majority. He was around 20 percentage points ahead of Dan.
The entire election is a repetition of the presidential election annuled by the constitutional court last year, which the Kremlin friend Calin Georgescu had won in the first round at that time. The court had justified the step with unauthorized methods and financing in the election campaign and banned a new candidacy Georgescus. Simion wants to enforce Georgescu for the office of prime minister.
Right -wing populist could contest if the election was defeated
On Saturday evening, Simion said that he only considered the election to be correct if she brings a “landslide victory” for him. To do this, he commented on the short message platform X in a video that shows him at the hairdresser. Before that, Simion had blocked his accounts on Facebook and Tikkok to signal that he no longer operates an election campaign on the day before the election. Election advertising in Romania is prohibited on Saturday and election Sunday.
The polling stations opened CEST at 6 a.m. and closed at 8:00 p.m. CEST. The first partial count results are expected to be expected around 10 p.m. CEST.
Central electoral office, tables to turnout, Romanian voter turnout, graphic representations in news portal, Romanian Simion at X, Video, English
dpa
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
