Liberal defeats hard-right contender to become mayor

Bucharest elected a liberal mayor in Sunday’s local election, partial results showed, giving Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan the upper hand in a fragile pro-European ruling coalition and handing a defeat to a hard-right contender tipped to win.

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The influential post has been vacant since May when centrist independent Nicusor Dan won a presidential election rerun one year into his second term as mayor, and polls had shown Bucharest on the verge of becoming the first European Union capital led by a hard-right politician.

Instead, Mr Dan will be replaced by Ciprian Ciucu, a close ally of Liberal premier Bolojan, who won 35.4%, an official preliminary count of 90% of votes showed.

Anca Alexandrescu, backed by the opposition hard-right Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR) ranked second with 22.35%, still significant for the country’s biggest city which is not a far-right stronghold.