Nationalist Simion secures Romania presidential vote

Hard-right nationalist George Simion is set to secure a decisive win in the first round of Romania's presidential election redo, electoral data indicates, months after an annulled vote plunged the European Union and Nato member country into its worst political crisis in decades.

- STEPHEN MCGRATH

Mr Simion, the 38-year-old leader of the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), is far outpacing all other candidates in the polls with 40 per cent after 98 per cent of votes excluding the diaspora had been counted, electoral commission data showed yesterday.

Ballots showed Bucharest mayor Nicusor Dan, 55, was in second place at around 21 per cent. They will meet in a runoff on 18 May, if final results confirm the reading after diaspora votes are counted.

By the time polls closed, about 9.57 million people – or 53.2 per cent of eligible voters – had cast their ballots, according to the Central Election Bureau, with 973,000 votes cast at polling stations set up in other countries.

The rerun was held after Romania’s political landscape was shaken last year when a top court voided the previous election in which the far-right outsider Calin Georgescu topped the first round, following allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference, which Moscow has denied.

In a prerecorded speech aired after polls closed, Mr Simion said that despite many obstacles, Romanians “have risen up” and “we are approaching an exceptional result”.