Romania’s new pro-European president puts it back on a Western course

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — A pro-European Union centrist pulled off an upset in Romania’s presidential election, beating out a hard-right nationalist who had channeled people’s anger at the political establishment to surge in the polls.

But the new leader now must contend with deep societal divisions that the tense vote laid bare.

Final results from Sunday’s presidential race showed Nicusor Dan winning 53.6% of the vote, ahead of the hard-right candidate George Simion, who during the campaign portrayed his movement as championing conservative values like patriotism, sovereignty and the family, and who styled himself as the Romanian analogue to U.S. President Donald Trump.

The victory for the pro-EU candidate marked a significant comeback in a tense election that many viewed as a geopolitical choice for the former Eastern Bloc country between East or West.

But as Dan, a 55-year-old mathematician, pro-Western reformist and mayor of Bucharest, takes over Romania’s presidency, fault lines remain in the country where endemic corruption, inequality and an erosion of trust in traditional institutions and parties have fueled a broad rejection of the political establishment.

Dan’s decisive win on Sunday was a major turnaround from the first round of elections on May 4, where Simion — a nationalist who has advocated for uniting Romania with neighboring Moldova and is banned from entering Ukraine — had nearly double Dan’s share of votes to become the clear front-runner for the second round.

Simion’s surge to prominence came after Romania’s first attempt to hold the presidential election late last year in which far-right outsider Calin Georgescu topped first-round polls. The country’s political landscape was upended after a top court voided the ballot, alleging electoral violations and Russian interference.

Capitalizing on the furor over the annulment of that election, Simion allied with Georgescu, who was banned in March from running in the election redo, and promised to appoint him prime minister if Simion secured the presidency.

While Simion was considered the favorite for the second round, a high voter turnout of 64.7% in Sunday’s ballot — more than in any Romanian election of the past quarter-century — is thought to have benefited Dan.

Adding to the high turnout were approximately 1.6 million votes from members of Romania’s large diaspora, which is primarily concentrated in Western Europe. Estimates suggest that between 4 and 5 million Romanians live abroad — nearly a quarter of the country’s population. Most emigrated after Romania joined the EU in 2007, seeking relief from high unemployment and low wages.

After Dan is sworn in as president in the coming days, he will face the challenge of nominating a prime minister who can garner the support necessary to form a government — a tall order in a country where anger with establishment politicians led to the emergence of figures like Georgescu and Simion.

Yet Dan himself, who rose to prominence as a civic activist fighting against illegal real estate projects and ran independently on a pro-EU ticket to support Ukraine and reaffirm Western ties, is among the critics of Romania’s entrenched political elite, and has argued for fiscal reforms and a crackdown on corruption.

Speaking to ecstatic supporters in the early hours of Monday following his victory, he struck a reformist tone, saying Romania was beginning “a new chapter, and it needs every one of you.”

“It needs experts to get involved in various public policies, it needs people in civil society, it needs new people in politics,” he said.

Cristian Andrei, a Bucharest-based political consultant, says Dan will face a string of immediate challenges, including putting together a new government in what is now a “totally new political landscape.”

“He will have to push and show reforms while meeting resistance in the state apparatus and being opposed by the new populist parties that now won 5 million votes,” Andrei said. “He will be under pressure to deliver change to an exasperated Romania while trying to unify a divided country.”

Romania in the EU and NATO

As a member of the EU and one of the easternmost members of the NATO military alliance, Romania plays a pivotal role in Western security infrastructure — especially since Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

After that invasion, NATO bolstered its presence on Europe’s eastern flank by sending additional multinational battlegroups to Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia, and Bucharest has played an increasingly prominent role in the alliance, donating a Patriot missile system to Ukraine and opening an international training hub for F-16 jet pilots from allied countries.

Dan said Monday he had a call with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and that he conveyed to Rutte that Romania “will remain a steadfast ally” within the alliance. ”At the same time, we rely on NATO to guarantee Romania’s unwavering security,” he said.

Many observers saw Sunday’s vote as crucial to maintaining Romania’s place within the network of Western alliances — especially amid fears that the Trump administration is reconsidering its security commitments to the United States’ European partners.

Siegfried Muresan, a Romanian member of the European Parliament, told The Associated Press on Monday that the election result was a relief for many in Brussels, the EU’s de-facto capital, and that Romania is now expected to play an active role in the bloc particularly in security and defense.

“There was an erosion of Romania’s credibility in the last year,” Muresan said. “That is partly restored now through the clear victory of the pro-European candidate.”

Muresan added that Romanians will expect Dan to deliver on promised reforms, but that his clear victory marks a setback for hard-right nationalism.

“People really rallied behind Europe … and understood the risks which extremists pose," he said. “So much lies now with the new president, who is a unifier, who has campaigned on the basis of facts.”

罗马尼亚布加勒斯特（美联社）——一位亲欧盟的中间派候选人在罗马尼亚总统选举中爆冷获胜，击败了一位极右翼民族主义者。这位极右翼民族主义者利用民众对政治建制派的愤怒情绪，在民调中迅速崛起。

但这位新领导人现在必须应对这场紧张的投票所暴露出的深刻的社会分歧。

周日总统选举的最终结果显示，尼库索尔·丹赢得了 53.6% 的选票，领先于极右翼候选人乔治·西蒙。西蒙在竞选期间将他的运动描绘成捍卫爱国主义、主权和家庭等保守价值观，并将自己塑造成罗马尼亚版的美国总统唐纳德·特朗普。

亲欧盟候选人的胜利标志着这个前东欧集团国家在紧张的选举中取得了重大胜利，许多人认为这是该国在东方和西方之间做出的地缘政治选择。

但随着 55 岁的数学家、亲西方改革派人士、布加勒斯特市长丹接任罗马尼亚总统，该国仍然存在着诸多断层线，根深蒂固的腐败、不平等以及对传统机构和政党的信任度下降，导致民众普遍拒绝政治建制派。

丹在周日取得的决定性胜利与 5 月 4 日的第一轮选举结果截然不同。当时，主张罗马尼亚与邻国摩尔多瓦统一的民族主义者西蒙获得了几乎是丹的两倍的选票，成为第二轮选举的明显领跑者。

西蒙的迅速崛起源于罗马尼亚去年底首次举行总统选举，当时极右翼候选人卡林·乔治斯库在首轮投票中领先。然而，最高法院以选举舞弊和俄罗斯干预为由宣布选举无效，该国政治格局因此发生巨变。

西蒙利用选举结果被宣布无效引发的轩然大波，与乔治斯库结盟。乔治斯库在三月份被禁止参加重新选举，西蒙承诺，如果自己当选总统，就任命他为总理。

虽然西蒙被认为是第二轮选举的热门人选，但周日投票中 64.7% 的高投票率——超过了过去 25 年罗马尼亚的任何一次选举——被认为对丹有利。

此次选举投票率居高不下，其中约有160万张选票来自罗马尼亚庞大的海外侨民群体，他们主要集中在西欧。据估计，约有400万至500万罗马尼亚人生活在国外，几乎占该国人口的四分之一。他们中的大多数人是在罗马尼亚于2007年加入欧盟后移民的，目的是为了摆脱高失业率和低工资的困境。

丹在未来几天宣誓就任总统后，将面临提名一位能够获得组建政府所需支持的总理的挑战——在一个民众对建制派政治家感到愤怒，导致乔治斯库和西蒙等人物涌现的国家，这是一项艰巨的任务。

然而，丹本人却是一位公民活动家，他因反对非法房地产项目而声名鹊起，并以亲欧盟的立场独立参选，支持乌克兰并重申与西方的关系。他也是罗马尼亚根深蒂固的政治精英的批评者之一，并主张进行财政改革和打击腐败。

周一凌晨，在他获胜后，他向欣喜若狂的支持者发表讲话，语气充满改革色彩，称罗马尼亚正在开启“新篇章，这需要你们每一个人”。

他说：“它需要专家参与各种公共政策，需要公民社会人士，需要政界新人。”

布加勒斯特的政治顾问克里斯蒂安·安德烈表示，丹将面临一系列迫在眉睫的挑战，包括在如今“全新的政治格局”中组建新政府。

安德烈说：“他必须在推进和展示改革的同时，还要应对国家机器内部的阻力，以及赢得500万张选票的新兴民粹主义政党的反对。他将面临巨大的压力，既要安抚民怨沸腾的罗马尼亚，又要努力弥合国家的分裂。”

罗马尼亚在欧盟和北约中的地位

作为欧盟成员国和北约军事联盟最东端的成员国之一，罗马尼亚在西方安全基础设施中扮演着关键角色——尤其是在俄罗斯于 2022 年 2 月全面入侵邻国乌克兰之后。

在那次入侵之后，北约通过向罗马尼亚、匈牙利、保加利亚和斯洛伐克派遣更多多国战斗群，加强了其在欧洲东翼的存在。布加勒斯特在联盟中扮演着越来越重要的角色，向乌克兰捐赠了一套爱国者导弹系统，并为来自盟国的F-16战斗机飞行员开设了一个国际训练中心。

丹周一表示，他与北约秘书长马克·吕特通了电话，并向吕特转达了罗马尼亚“将继续作为北约的坚定盟友”。他还说：“与此同时，我们依靠北约来保障罗马尼亚的绝对安全。”

许多观察人士认为，周日的投票对于维持罗马尼亚在西方联盟网络中的地位至关重要——尤其是在人们担心特朗普政府正在重新考虑其对美国欧洲伙伴的安全承诺的情况下。

欧洲议会罗马尼亚议员西格弗里德·穆雷桑周一告诉美联社，选举结果让欧盟事实上的首都布鲁塞尔的许多人松了一口气，罗马尼亚现在有望在欧盟中发挥积极作用，尤其是在安全和国防领域。

穆雷桑说：“罗马尼亚的信誉在过去一年里有所下降。现在，随着亲欧候选人的明显胜利，这种信誉已部分恢复。”

穆雷桑补充说，罗马尼亚人希望丹能够兑现改革承诺，但他的彻底胜利标志着极右翼民族主义的挫败。

他说：“人们真正团结在了欧洲周围……并且理解了极端分子构成的风险。现在，很多事情都取决于这位新总统，他是一位团结者，他的竞选是基于事实的。”