The centrists battling to stop Romania's far-right surge

Irish Times

30-04-2025

Pro-European centrists are battling for second place in
Romania
's upcoming presidential elections, in a bid to thwart a far-right victory that would further destabilise the
European Union
and Nato member state.
For the first time since the fall of communism, a Maga-style ultranationalist has a comfortable lead in opinion polls ahead of Sunday's election rerun, five months after the vote was annulled due to alleged Russian meddling.
George Simion, who is campaigning to 'Make Romania Great Again' and has previously questioned the merits of EU and Nato membership, is polling at about 34 per cent – well below the 50 per cent threshold needed to win outright. That leaves room for a centrist challenger in the May 18th run-off to block his path to the presidency.
'Populism and isolationism' were putting Romania's pro-western orientation at risk, centrist candidate Crin Antonescu said. He called his nationalist rivals 'impostors' and 'cardboard figures' who were unable to defend Romania's international interests.
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A 65-year-old former liberal senator who came back from political retirement in December, Antonescu is playing up his leadership skills after having briefly served as president in 2012 during impeachment proceedings against then-president Traian Basescu.
Antonescu, who is running on behalf of the three government coalition parties, is polling neck and neck with another pro-EU centrist, Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan. According to surveys published by FlashData earlier this week, Antonescu would win a run-off against Simion.
Dan has also described the country's foreign policy orientation the 'most important thing at stake after this election', adding that only himself or Antonescu would guarantee the country's continued commitment to the EU and Nato.
Populists such as Simion, said Dan, 'may try to emulate [US president Donald] Trump, but they copy Russian narratives in Romania ... They were always against supporting Ukraine during the war.'
The FlashData scenarios mapped out on Monday showed that Antonescu was likely to win the run-off against Simion, but that Dan would have difficulties beating the far-right candidate in the second round.
Siegfried Mureșan, a centre-right Romanian MEP whose party supports Antonescu, said Dan's supporters were likely to swing behind Antonescu in the second round – but the reverse was less certain. Some of Antonescu's voters, he warned, might be more drawn to Simion than to Bucharest's mayor.
'Simion is qualifying for the run-off and will be an anti-EU candidate,' Mureșan said. 'The question is who will be the pro-EU candidate and how to help him succeed.'
Simion's popularity soared after he took over the baton from Calin Georgescu, a fringe pro-Putin nationalist who surprisingly topped the elections last November after having polled in the low single digits.
Romanian declassified intelligence reports pointed to Russia having orchestrated a sophisticated social media campaign in favour of Georgescu, who was subsequently barred from running again. The self-proclaimed 'president-elect' who performed a Nazi salute after being questioned by prosecutors is under investigation for illegal campaign financing and attempts to overthrow the constitutional order with the help of fascist groups.
Another Maga-style candidate, former prime minister Victor Ponta, has lost traction in surveys after having briefly polled second earlier in the race. Elena Lasconi, a pro-EU centrist who made it into the run-off against Georgescu last year, is even further behind and has come under pressure from her own party to drop out and back Dan.
Dan (55) is a trained mathematician turned anti-corruption activist who won the mayorship of the Romanian capital as an independent for a second time last year.
After having put his name forward in December, Dan failed to garner the support of the ruling parties. But he has secured the backing of his old party, the centrist opposition Union Save Romania, which withdrew its support from Lasconi.
Dan has faced scrutiny over his campaign finances and alleged Russia links of some people in his entourage, which were later debunked.
Antonescu also had to fend off what he described as a smear campaign about a statement he gave in his youth for the communist secret police, who had asked him about a childhood friend who had fled abroad. Antonescu said such statements were commonplace before the fall of communism in 1989 and that he did not include anything that could have hurt his friend or his family. The official archives of the Securitate, the communist secret services, found no evidence of him having collaborated with the secret police.
Antonescu said that if elected president he would work with the government to reset US relations that have come under strain after the Trump administration criticised Bucharest for annulling last year's vote.
'There are many areas of common interest between Romania and the US,' he said, citing the energy and defence sectors, with America's significant military presence at Romanian bases near the Black Sea coast.
Romania plans to boost its defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP from next year, in line with what Nato's new target is expected to be after Trump pressured European allies to spend more for their own security.
Ion M Ionița, an independent Romanian analyst and historian, noted that the level of dissatisfaction with the political class was difficult to map out in surveys, which meant that the outcome of this election was still highly unpredictable.
'We don't know how the anti-establishment vote will come out,' he said, noting that in November Georgescu won 23 per cent of the votes even though he had polled in the single digits just a few weeks prior to the election. 'The protest [vote] could upend our calculations.' − Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025