Romania’s democracy is back from the brink (for now)
Nicușor Dan pulls off a decisive win after last year’s cancelled election.
GRIGORE POP-ELECHES
On May 18, Romanian democracy came back from the brink. Nicușor Dan, the centrist mayor of Bucharest, overcame a 20-point deficit in the first round of elections two weeks earlier, and scored an unexpectedly clear 7-point victory over George Simion, an extreme nationalist populist who cultivated ties to the Trump administration and the European far right.
The election marks the end of a turbulent year-long election cycle that included the surprise victory of Calin Georgescu, an extreme nationalist dark horse candidate, in the subsequently annulled first-round presidential elections in November 2024; and a record 30% vote share for three extreme-nationalist parties in the December parliamentary elections. In the first round of the repeat presidential elections, held on May 4, 2025, Simion appeared to have an insurmountable lead and to be on path for a victory in the May 18 second round of the election, which was necessitated by the fact that no candidate received more than 50% of the vote in the first round.
The democratic challenges of these electoral results were compounded by the fact that last December the Romanian Constitutional Court annulled the first round of the 2024 presidential elections, citing Russia’s large-scale social media manipulation efforts. In March, the court barred Georgescu from the rerun presidential elections in May. Both decisions triggered street protests in Romania and sharp criticism from key figures in the Trump administration.
What Explains Dan’s Remarkable Comeback?
Dan’s surprising ability to overcome Simion’s 41% to 21% lead from the May 4 first-round voting was not driven by mainstream elites rallying in favor of the pro-European candidate. Both former Senate president Crin Antonescu (who finished third with 20% of the vote) and former Prime Minister Victor Ponta (in fourth place with 13%) refused to endorse Dan. And while Dan ran an effective campaign, and could point to his experience as a mayor of Bucharest and a former civil society organizer – and his two gold medals in the International Math Olympics – he is not a particularly charismatic politician. Arguably his victory reflects – at least in part – the inherent limitations of Simion’s divisive political rhetoric.
One consequential endorsement for Dan came from Kelemen Hunor, leader of the ethnic Hungarian party (UDMR). In a statement contradicting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s support for Simion, Hunor argued that Simion isn’t “Christian or a sovereigntist” but “anti-Hungarian with every fiber of his body.” Hungarian minority voters in Romania took notice and gave Dan over 90% of their votes, but also turned out in significantly higher numbers than in the first round. These votes accounted for more than two-thirds of Dan’s victory margin in the second round. As an aside, Orban’s baffling decision to back Simion in the Romanian elections may have important implications for Hungary’s elections next year. That decision now gives the Hungarian opposition an opportunity to make inroads among Hungarians from Romania. Many in this bloc have dual citizenship, and have traditionally voted overwhelmingly for Orban’s Fidesz party.
Dan Closed The Gap Among Diaspora Voters
Another important factor in Dan’s success was his ability to reduce Simion’s remarkable first-round dominance among Romania’s large diaspora. In the May 18 voting, Dan increased his share from 26% to 44% of these voters, while Simion’s share declined slightly from 61% to 56%, despite his work to court diaspora voters aggressively between the two rounds. Part of this shift was due to a large increase in diaspora turnout in neighboring Moldova, where many people have dual citizenship. Among Romanians voting from Moldova, Simion received less than 13% of the vote in both rounds. Simion, in turn, blamed his loss on manipulation and vote buying by the Moldovan government – without citing credible evidence. The more likely explanation lies with the fact that Simion’s irredentism, while helpful with part of the Romanian electorate, helped mobilize Dan’s support from Moldovans.
Furthermore, Simion lost ground amid higher diaspora voter turnout even in the West European countries with large numbers of labor migrants (especially Italy, Spain, and Germany). He had secured commanding victories in the first round, with almost 75% of the diaspora vote from these three countries, but in the second round his vote share declined to about 68%. These trends suggest that Romanians working in Western Europe may have realized at least partially the risks of backing an anti-E.U. candidate. A controversial interview Simion gave on French TV three days before the second round voting highlighted that risk. Speaking in a mix of broken French and Romanian, he compared France to Iran and accused French President Emmanuel Macron of dictatorial tendencies.
How Romanians View Trump, Ceaușescu – And Simion
As a final – albeit preliminary – illustration of the drivers and limits of Simion’s appeal, the figure below shows the probability of voting for Simion as a function of the respondents’ evaluation of two politicians that capture different facets of Simion’s rejection of the Western liberal model: Romania’s former communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu; and U.S. President Donald Trump. These data are based on an online survey of 1,500 respondents I ran in Romania in the ten days before the second round voting.
While Simion repeatedly touted his connections to the Trump administration, the appeals to communist nostalgia were somewhat less central to the campaign. Simion did, however, compare Ceaușescu favorably to Romania’s post-communist presidents. And Simion’s “sovereigntist” ideology has clear echoes to Ceaușescu’s nationalist communism of the 1980s. The survey results suggest that voting for Simion was closely linked to support for both Ceaușescu and Trump. Respondents who expressed strongly positive views of the two politicians reported roughly 4:1 odds of choosing Simion over Dan. The patterns were reversed for those who strongly disliked Ceaușescu and Trump. As the figure indicates, the links to Romania’s communist past and the MAGA ideology of the Trump administration seemed to provide a loyal core of support for Simion – but may have ultimately undermined his ability to win over a majority of the Romanian electorate.
The Simion Vote Is Higher Among Ceaușescu And Trump Supporters
(Poll Taken Prior To Round 2 Voting)
Implications For Romanian Democracy
Dan’s victory put an end – at least for now – to what has arguably been the most serious challenge to Romanian democracy since the turbulent period of the early 1990s. But – to paraphrase Soviet leader Josef Stalin – this does not mean that pro-democratic politicians and citizens can afford to get “dizzy with success.” In the short term, Romania still has to deal with the fallout of the elections. Simion challenged the second-round results, but Romania’s Constitutional Court rejected the claim and validated the election results last week. Simion has now called on his supporters to participate in street protests to try to push for early elections.
Dan also faces the tough hurdle of forming a new governing coalition. This process is complicated by the large number of parliamentary seats held by Romania’s three extreme-nationalist parties, and by the fact that his support in parliament is tenuous. In the first round he was only endorsed by one parliamentary party, USR, which accounts for 12% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. An added political uncertainty is the ongoing leadership succession crises in the mainstream parties (especially the Social Democratic Party, PSD, which has the largest share of parliamentary seats.)
Beyond these short-term challenges, Romanians have to grapple with the longer-term threats facing their democracy. The fact that a candidate as extreme and as flawed as George Simion came within a few percentage points of winning the presidency has exposed several serious vulnerabilities in Romania’s political system, including a mainstream political elite unable to overcome its infighting and short-term political interests even in the face of an existential political threat; and a frustrated population increasingly willing to take down the system, even if doing so means following nationalist populists. Unless Romania can reverse this widespread and deep-seated distrust of the political system, it seems only a matter of time before Simion, Georgescu, or some other like-minded politician will succeed in taking power.
Nicușor Dan made his entry into politics as an anti-establishment politician – albeit as a centrist and pro-European candidate. He may have a better shot at initiating this political turnaround than the establishment candidates who ran in the two recent presidential elections. But to do so, he has to walk a fine line between his anti-establishment rhetorical appeals and the need to create a functioning governing coalition in a parliament where the traditional parties still hold the balance of power.
Grigore Pop-Eleches is professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University.