Shock election result after it was REDONE due to ‘Russian meddling' as Europe deals Putin blow in ‘Super Sunday' votes
EUROPE'S voters have delivered a crushing blow to Putin in a shock election twist, following a re-run after claims of Russian meddling.
Millions of Europeans headed to the polls today in what is being called a Super Sunday showdown.
Advertisement
5
Far-right candidate George Simion casts his vote during Romania's presidential election in Bucharest
Credit: Shutterstock Editorial
5
Nicusor Dan is expected to win the election, according to exit polls
Credit: EPA
5
Romania's elections had to be redone due to claims of Russian meddling last year
Credit: Reuters
Romania's far-right candidate George Simion has long been the favourite to win the country's presidential election.
Simion comfortably won the first round of voting on May 4 with 41 per cent of the vote - double that of rival Nicusor Dan.
But the gap between the pair is closing in and Dan is now expected to snag the win in what will be a nail-biting finish.
Dan was reportedly ahead of Simion after 50 per cent of votes had been counted, with exit polls predicting a win for the mayor of Bucharest.
Advertisement
read more on Putin
Dan's win will come as a massive blow to Putin who has the support of the far-right.
Simion's campaign was reportedly inspired by US MAGA politicians, with the far-right candidate promising to "make Romania great again".
His win would have been welcome news to Putin, with the former football ultra previously pledging to end military aid to Kyiv.
Simion has also been banned from the war-torn country for calling for territory there to be part of Romania.
Advertisement
Most read in The US Sun
A Romanian politician, Siegfried Mureşan, celebrated the result as he said a win for Simion would 'benefit only Vladimir Putin'.
This comes as the result of last year's presidential election was scrapped due to claims of Russian meddling
.
Russia unleashes 'war's biggest drone attack' as Putin defies Trump's calls to 'stop bloodbath' & vows to keep fighting
It is thought that Russia helped set up unverified social media TikTok accounts in support of the far-right independent candidate Calin Georgescu who came out on top.
The pro-Georgescu videos posted on TikTok were not labelled as election content, directly breaching Romania's laws.
Advertisement
Moscow denied interfering in the vote.
Millions of Europeans headed to the polls today in what has been dubbed Super Sunday, with Romania, Poland and
Portugal
holding elections.
The first round of Poland's presidential election has also proved to be a kick in the teeth to Vlad, with exit polls suggesting that
Warsaw's liberal Mayor
Rafal Trzaskowski will take the win.
The Russian tyrant was likely hoping for a far-right candidate to win, with many of those in the running holding anti-Ukraine views.
Advertisement
A number of candidates even discussed backing an 'agreement' with Russia's Vladimir Putin in their election campaigns.
And in the Portuguese elections the centre-right appear to be ahead, as the far-right sees yet another fall.
5
Poles cast their votes in the polling station in Gdansk, Poland
Credit: Getty
5
A child casts a ballot in lieu of her relative at a polling station in Espinho, Portugal
Credit: Reuters
Advertisement
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Independent
8 hours ago
- Irish Independent
Number of Russian casualties passes one million, says Kyiv
Toll of the conflict laid bare as aerial bombardment of Ukraine continues ©Associated Press The number of Russian troops killed or wounded in Ukraine has topped one million, military officials in Kyiv said yesterday, outlining the huge price Moscow has paid for its three-year-old invasion. The claim by the General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces, which came on a holiday celebrating Russia's sovereignty, is in line with Western intelligence estimates.
Irish Examiner
12 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Irish Examiner view: Intolerance fuelled unrest in Ballymena
In recent days, there has been sustained rioting in Ballymena, in the North. Readers have no doubt seen for themselves on television and social media plentiful footage of disorder and chaos from the town in Antrim. There was a time when such violence was very familiar, and at this time of year in particular. The North's marching season often involved confrontation between different groups, and the imagery of police in riot gear and youths throwing petrol bombs was a regular feature of the evening news. This violence is different, however. It began as a peaceful protest after an alleged sexual assault in the area, an incident which resulted in two teenage boys being charged at Coleraine Magistrates' Court on Monday morning. The two boys had a Romanian interpreter in court and there is an undeniable racial component to the subsequent violent demonstrations, with the PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson describing those scenes as 'racist thuggery targeted at ethnic minorities and police officers'. The disorder has led to dozens of police officers being injured and has spread elsewhere in the North, including Larne. A leisure centre in the latter town was set alight after it was suggested that families driven out of Ballymena would be accommodated there. The apparent breakdown of law and order in one small town in the North is shocking in and of itself, with the scale of violence so great that police forces in Scotland have promised to send officers to help. The weaponisation of an alleged crime to facilitate racially-motivated rioting is a significant development, and a worrying one. There will be plenty of observers south of the border happy to point out that decades of institutional bigotry in the North may have prepared fertile ground for various forms of intolerance. Whatever substance there may be to that view, it would be naive to imagine a similar situation arising here might not be subject to the same kind of manipulation. Air India crash News of a major air disaster is always chilling, and that was certainly the case yesterday when we learned of the crash of Air India Flight AI171. The London-bound aircraft, carrying 242 people, crashed shortly after take-off in Ahmedabad, western India, and was scheduled to fly to Gatwick. At the time of writing, the final death toll had not been established. The plane came down in a residential area and is understood to have crashed directly into an accommodation block which houses medical staff. The cause of the crash has not been determined yet. Investigators will be keen to examine the black box flight recorders from the aircraft, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. It was unsurprising that that company's stock price fell sharply once news of the crash spread. Though reports suggest it is the first crash involving an aircraft of that type, the entire 787 fleet was reportedly grounded in 2013 after fires related to batteries in its electrical power system. This news will have a particular resonance in Ireland, and Cork in particular, as it is almost exactly 40 years to the day since Air India Flight 182 — a passenger flight on the Montreal-Mumbai route — crashed off our south-west coast. On June 23, 1985, Flight 182, a Boeing 747-237B, broke up when a bomb planted by Canadian Sikh terrorists exploded in its cargo area. There was a major recovery operation undertaken at the time to retrieve the bodies, one of the largest missions of its kind in Irish history, while hundreds of relatives of those lost in the crash travelled to Ireland in the aftermath. A memorial at Ahakista in West Cork, built at the nearest point on land to where Air India Flight 182 disintegrated, was unveiled on the first anniversary of the bombing in June 23, 1986. Some 30 years after that unveiling, the Canadian ambassador to Ireland, Kevin Vickers, said: 'Canada will be forever indebted to the people of Cork and of the community here on the Sheep's Head for all the support and kindness [they] have shown the relatives and their families.' Many of those people who remember 1985 will be thinking of Flight AI171 today. School phone pouches The phone pouch scheme for schools remains a lightning rod for controversy. We learned this week that a tender for the central provision of the pouches was published in January but the Department of Education last week stated that the competition would be cancelled without a winner, though 12 tenders were received. The department will issue guidance on developing school policy on phone use and on how to apply for funding for the pouches, even though schools are not obliged to apply for the funding. This means a delay in implementing policy, increased bureaucracy, and higher costs — all for the sake of an unnecessary initiative being introduced as a top-down measure, when school phone storage is a classic example of a local issue requiring local solutions. This ongoing fiasco is reminiscent of the cliched scenario in which a sensible six-year-old child points out the obvious and glaring flaws in a plan to adults who are invested in approving that plan. The Department of Education is not the only State body in need of that kind of advice but it would do well even now to listen to this mythical six-year-old and abandon this measure. Read More Irish Examiner view: Free speech does not equal a right to intimidate
The Irish Sun
13 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
Thugs throw missiles on FOURTH night of violence as families forced to hide in attics in riots which injured 41 cops
RIOTERS have lobbed bottles and petrol bombs at cops with blazes springing up in Northern Ireland as a fourth night of carnage erupts. Police barricades are blocking roads amid 7 A person cycles past a fire in Co Armagh as violence erupts yet again Credit: PA 7 Riot police officers stand guard on a bridge in Portadown as fires blaze Credit: Reuters 7 Fires burning in Portadown in Co Armagh, following three nights of disorder in NI Credit: PA So far, stones and bottles have been thrown and bins set on fire after being dragged into the streets of Portadown - which is an hour away from where the riots began on Monday. A police spokesperson warned they "will not tolerate a repeat of the scenes" seen over the last few nights. PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher described the rioting as " He said: "I want to send a very clear message to all our diverse communities: we stand absolutely shoulder to shoulder with you. We are here to protect you. Read more 'We are your police service, and these bigots and racists will not win the day." Cops earlier decried the mass carnage as "racist thuggery". They've called in reinforcements to keep the peace, with 80 extra officers from Scotland coming over. Violence originally erupted in Ballymena on Monday, stemming from an initially peaceful gathering to support a girl and her family after an alleged sexual assault. Most read in The Sun Two 14-year-old boys appeared in court charged with attempted rape on Monday. A third man, 28, was also arrested over the alleged sexual assault. The boys confirmed their names - which cannot be reported - and their ages through a Romanian interpreter at Coleraine Magistrates' Court. But within hours of their court appearance, disorder broke out in Co Antrim. Masked yobs set fire to NI leisure centre 'used to house locals fleeing riots' as violence hits Ballymena for 3rd night Northern Ireland's Chief Constable said that the girl's family are "mortified" at the rioting. "Let's stop it now, Everybody wants it to stop" he said. "I reiterate the retraumatising of this poor girl, she's been through enough through what happened to her on Saturday evening. She doesn't want any of this. "I know the family are mortified. I've spoken to them personally, they've asked me to make this plea. Why the two 14-year-old boys charged with attempted rape can't be named The two teenagers charged with attempted rape appeared at Coleraine Magistrates' Court on Monday. The defendants cannot be named due to their ages. Article 22(2) of the 1998 Order restricts press and media reporting of proceedings in youth courts. It states that, where a child is concerned in any criminal proceedings in a youth court or on appeal from a youth court, no report revealing the name, address or school of any child, including anything likely to lead to the identification of the child, shall be published. Press and media are also restricted from publishing a picture of any child concerned, except where the court or the Department of Justice, if satisfied that it is in the interests of justice to do so, makes an order dispensing with these prohibitions. 7 Fireworks, bricks and petrol bombs have all been hurled at cops in recent days Credit: AFP "So for all of you listening, for people who have any sort of responsibility or charge over people who have been doing this awful disorder, get them to desist, stop it. "It's not helping anyone. It's certainly not helping your community." Families in the town of Ballymena, Co Antrim have been forced to flee their homes as the riots continue. Residents in Portadown, County Armagh, were warned tonight that demonstrations are being "directed towards migrants, foreign nationals, and what (is) perceived as deviant behaviour". A letter urged locals to secure their property and belongings, and to stay elsewhere if possible. Earlier in the week, crowds set fire to piles of furniture in the middle of the streets, homes were set alight, and multiple cars went up in flames. Footage showed Officers fired baton rounds and water cannon in a desperate bid to keep the mobs at bay. Yesterday, a In total, 41 officers have been injured in the chaos - with the force even describing a hatchet being chucked at them. Many residents have placed posters in their windows identifying themselves as British to avoid being targeted. Union Jack flags were also prominently displayed. A hand-written note in one window read: "British residents." The PSNI said: "At this time, all incidents are being treated as racially-motivated hate crimes. "We absolutely condemn these disgraceful attacks on our minority ethnic friends and neighbours. "Those responsible are endangering not only the lives of those inside the properties, but putting themselves at risk of injury." Earlier today, three teenagers appeared in court charged with rioting offences. There have been 15 arrests in total. 7 Fire burns near a demonstrator as riots continue in Ballymena, June 11 Credit: Reuters 7 A leisure centre in Larne came under attack after it emerged some foreign families escaping the chaos were being temporarily housed there Credit: Getty 7 Properties in Ballymena with signs saying 'locals live here' to deter rioters Credit: PA
