"BUCHAREST -- Romania's decision last year to annul a vote won by a nationalist candidate over suspected Russian interference has drawn sharp criticism from the Trump administration.
Now, a new antiestablishment candidate is leading in the first round of an election rerun Sunday, posing a challenge to the governing parties in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization member.
George Simion has cast himself as the successor to Calin Georgescu, the previous winner who has been barred from running. The 38-year-old Simion has praised President Trump and called for unification with neighboring Moldova. Both Ukraine and Moldova have barred Simion from visiting.
Simion's success in the first round of voting on Sunday, leading in exit polls, adds to fears in the West that Romania's response to alleged election interference by Russia has served only to further stoke instability in a country that hosts two NATO bases, thousands of U.S. troops and an American missile-defense shield.
Simion won around 30% in the exit polls, well ahead of the rest of the field. With more votes from abroad still being counted, second place was still unclear. Simion and the second-place candidate will compete in a second round on May 18.
In the previous first-round election in November, Georgescu came out of nowhere to win. Romanian authorities overturned the result, saying Russia had likely orchestrated a TikTok campaign backing the candidate. They later barred Georgescu from running in the May 2025 elections.
The Kremlin has called accusations that it was behind the TikTok campaign "absolute stupidity" and said that any election without Georgescu is illegitimate.
Vice President JD Vance criticized the decision by Romania's election authorities in a February speech in Munich, in which he took aim at European countries for not upholding democratic values.
For years, Romania was regarded as a reliable NATO partner and a bulwark against populist parties that emerged in Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. But annulling the election results and barring Georgescu from running appears to have backfired on Romania's political establishment.
The moves outraged many Romanians, who saw them as an attempt by the government to keep a monopoly on power. With Georgescu out, many are now backing Simion.
"They avoided direct Russian influence but created a situation that the Russians are after, which is undermining faith in democratic institutions," said Jacques Rupnik, an expert on Central and Eastern Europe and professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.
To make matters worse, some politicians have accused the ruling Social Democratic Party of aiding Simion's rise. They say the party, which rules in a coalition, encouraged members to vote for him in last year's election, so that he might defeat other centrist candidates in the first round of voting. The Social Democratic candidate would then handily beat Simion in the final round. A spokesman for the prime minister declined to comment on the allegation.
Clean-cut and camera-friendly, Simion's raven-haired image now dominates campaign posters all over the former communist country. He has brought a theatrical flare to the campaign trail, sometimes appearing at rallies in folk costumes.
He got his start in political activism advocating for the reunification of Romania and neighboring Moldova. The two were split by a pact between the Nazis and the Soviets in 1940.
"That pact still scars" Romania, Simion said in an email to The Wall Street Journal. "I demand dignity for Romanians beyond our borders."" [1]
1. World News: Antiestablishment Candidate Shakes Up Romania Election. Grove, Thomas. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 05 May 2025: A9.
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