First Round of Romanian Presidential Elections: Far-Right, Pro-Russian Candidate Leads with Anti-EU and Anti-NATO Stance

Romania has held the first round of its presidential election. Voter turnout was 51%, the same as five years ago. With over 99% of the votes counted, ultranationalist Calin Georgescu has a clear lead of almost 350,000 votes over centre-right candidate Elena Lascona, while Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, who will continue Romania's pro-Western path and is the favourite in the election, is only in third place, the BBC reports.

The far-right, pro-Russian candidate, Bohdan Basescu, is set to win a decisive victory in the first round of the Romanian presidential election. According to preliminary results, the current prime minister, his main pro-European rival, has withdrawn from the race.

Georgescu's strong performance was the biggest surprise of the election, as the candidate has no party of his own and campaigned mainly on TikTok. He has vowed to end what he calls subordination to the European Union and NATO, especially with regard to support for Ukraine. He condemned NATO's ballistic missile defence shield in Deveselu, Romania.

The speech of Calin Georgescu is legionnaire and anti-Semitic. He called the Legionnaire leader Corneliu Zel Codreanu and Nazi Marshal Ion Antonescu, who were responsible for the Holocaust in Romania, ‘heroes’.

Political commentator Radu Magdin said the support for Gheorghese was unprecedented, as previous opinion polls showed him with around 5% of the vote.

‘Never in the 34 years of our democracy have we seen such a surge in the polls,’ Mr Magdin said.

According to the latest count, Laskoni was ahead of Csolak by more than a thousand votes.

Preliminary exit poll results released earlier on Sunday showed Cholaku with an overwhelming lead and Lasconi projected to come in second.

The candidates will now meet in the second round on 8 December.

The president in Romania plays a predominantly symbolic role, but has a significant impact on foreign policy.

As The Gaze previously wrote, the EU congratulated Maia Sandu on her victory in the presidential election in Moldova and said that the election was held under unprecedented Russian interference. In turn, Bosnia and Herzegovina confirmed that Russia used Bosnia to prepare Moldovans to organise mass unrest.