Simion Wins Romania's First Round in a Landslide
Quick Hit: May 5, 2025
Ultranationalist candidate George Simion won the first round of Romania’s presidential elections with 40.96% of the vote. He will advance to round 2 against Bucharest Mayor Nicuşor Dan who got 20.99% of the vote in the first round, narrowly edging out Crin Antonescu for second place. Here is a summary of the top vote getters in the first round:
The first round results set up a runoff between far right “sovereigntist” George Simion and independent centrist Nicuşor Dan. While pre-election polls showed this potential second round matchup to be close, these same polls undercounted the support of Simion substantially with Politico’s pre-election poll of polls estimating his support at only 30%.
Combining the votes of centrists Nicuşor Dan, Crin Antonescu and Elena Lasconi implies that they will have serious difficulty overcoming the “sovereigntist” votes gathered by Simion and Ponta.
How Moldova Voted
Moldovan-Romanian dual citizens turned out in record numbers with 91,000 people going to the polls over the weekend. Within Moldova, Nicuşor Dan won 52% of the vote, followed by Crin Antonescu at 21.69% and George Simion at 12.47%. While this represents a broad based rejection of the far-right candidate, Simion gained more than twice the number of votes in Moldova that he and Călin Georgescu got in the November 2024 elections combined.
Overall, Romania’s large diaspora voted in record numbers with the majority of diaspora voters supporting Simion at 60.99% vs Nicuşor Dan at 25.45%. The next closest candidate, Antonescu, gained only 6.74% in the diaspora. Diaspora voters in Western European countries such as France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the UK overwhelmingly supported Simion. Romanian voters in the US, Canada, and throughout Central and Eastern Europe largely supported Nicuşor Dan or other centrist candidates.
You can see these results on a country by country map here.
What Happens Next?
According to the Romanian Constitution, candidates, political parties and civic groups have until May 6th to petition the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) to annul the elections due to electoral fraud. On May 8th the Central Election Bureau (CEB) will officially present the results to the CCR which will then consider the results and evaluate any complaints. If the results are accepted, the CCR will officially ratify the results of the first round on May 9th, at which time the second round campaign will officially begin. Romania will next vote on May 18th.
Political Fallout
The results of the first round have begun what is likely to be a complex period of political reshuffling and realignment in Romania. Elena Lasconi resigned the leadership of her party USR today ahead of reports that the USR National Political Committee was planning on ousting her this evening. Lasconi came in second place in last November’s presidential election but steadily lost ground as Nicuşor Dan, the original founder of USR, entered the race as an independent. USR is expected to throw their support behind Dan in a meeting this evening.
Victor Ponta has stated that he will endorse in the second round and plans to campaign for “one of the two candidates” but he has not said who. The former leftist turned “sovereigntist” political chameleon is likely to spend a few days trying to make backroom deals before throwing his weight behind a candidate.
G4Media reports that the centrist, establishment coalition government is considering ousting Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu over the failure of their candidate Crin Antonescu in the first round. Antonescu called on his voters to vote their conscience in the second round but left decisions about an endorsement up to the coalition of parties that he represented.
Setting out the stakes for the second round Nicuşor Dan said the following:
"A difficult second round will follow with the isolationist candidate. It will not be a debate between individuals, it will be a debate between a pro-Western direction for Romania and an anti-Western direction for Romania."
He went on to express his confidence that he, and the movement he will now lead, will be able to prevail.
What this Means for Moldova
At the time of writing no major Moldovan political figures have made statements about the election outcome. Officially, the PAS party supported Crin Antonescu due to their common membership in the EU level European People’s Party (EPP). At the same time, it was clear that many political leaders were favorable to Nicuşor Dan who actively campaigned in Moldova and has sought to court Romanian citizens in the country.
I’ve written multiple articles recently laying out the stakes of this election for Moldova. I won’t rehash the details here but would suggest readers who missed them go back and take a look:
Writing in an excellent English language article Moldovan political analyst Denis Cenusa lays out the difficult choice that Moldova’s political leaders will now face. Romania is a key partner for Moldova and one of the country’s greatest supporters in the EU. Moldova has relied on Romania for emergency energy supplies throughout this winter and in multiple other instances since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Cenusa argues that the main beneficiaries of a Simion victory would be the “sovereigntist” parties in Moldova - namely the Socialists. This echos my argument in the above article that these elections could herald a political realignment in Moldova and the region. If Simion wins, Chisinau will at times be forced to pick between an isolationist Romania with the backing of the Trump administration, and the EU.
In the short term we can expect Moldovan political leaders to support Nicuşor Dan in the second round. At the same time, the fact that the first round votes so strongly supported the sovereigntist candidates will make this a difficult balancing act. George Simion is already banned from entering Moldova and Ukraine due to his revisionist claims on parts of Ukraine and all of Moldova. Chisinau will have to consider what kind of relationship it can have with Simion if he is elected when deciding how loudly to support Dan.
Another aspect to watch in Moldova is how much this victory for Simion excites local Unionists. The fact that Simion did so poorly in Moldova, even among the subset of dual citizens, indicates that there isn’t a major appetite for talk of union right now. That said, an avowed Unionist in the Romanian presidency will likely have at least some knock-on effect in Moldova that could inflame inter-ethnic tensions and old political fights ahead of the parliamentary elections.
Romania’s first round vote is over. In the coming days a flurry of activity will happen as all factions prepare for the second round vote on May 18th. We’ll keep you updated as the story progresses.
This issue of Moldova Matters is supported by Rotary Club Cosmopolitan — Club Secretary Luc Vocks invites you to join an English-speaking (mostly) expat club that meets weekly to hear from engaging speakers and enjoy some light networking. If you're curious to learn more or would like to attend a meeting as a guest, feel free to contact l.vocks@developmentaid.org.
Thanks for your detailed summary, and the astute commentary. The results of this election are worse than I imagined, and give a clear confirmation of the strong tilt towards extreme right ideology in Romania. And it's hard to see how this can be undone in the years to come; if we look at the situation in Hungary, we can expect this to last for many years... This is really disturbing and very depressing... And Moldova will find itself between a rock and hard place...
"The fact that Simion did so poorly in Moldova, even among the subset of dual citizens, indicates that there isn’t a major appetite for talk of union right now."
Not sure this would be my takeaway from this. AUR and Simion are a fascist extreme-right choice that is likely to cause havoc for Romania in the EU (a la Orban) and would support Trump-friendly and Kremlin-friendly policies esp. in the Ukrainian war but also more generally in terms of European and East European security (e.g. AUR voted against the law for Romanian army to be able to down Russian drones in Romanian airspace).
In the Venn diagram there isn't a large overlap with the official (dual-citizen) Romanian diaspora in Rep. of Moldova (i.e. historically the region of East Moldova) which would more likely support collaboration with the EU and NATO, strengthening Eastern European defenses and would generally prefer to avoid having Russian drones rain destruction on civilians in Moldovan cities as they do in Ukraine. Just like Călin Georgescu, AUR and Simion will probably simply act as Kremlin proxies. And in light of the dismantling of democratic institutions in Georgia and the US by Kremlin-affiliated candidates, it is unlikely that such candidate would get enthusiastic support from those who would view East Moldova historically as part of Romania within a democratic EU framework and with political stability.
If you look at the voting patterns of Romanian diaspora in Eastern Europe (Rep. of Moldova, Poland, Hungary, Czech Rep., Baltic Republics and even Georgia), support for pro-Russian Simion was low ranging between 15-20% on average. Instead Pro-European votes got clear majorities in most of the region. I would view the results in East Moldova mostly through this regional prism and security concerns.