As was expected, Social
Democratic Premier Marcel Ciolacu (Psd) won in the first round
of today's presidential election in Romania. There will need to
be a runoff, however, to know who will succeed the outgoing
president, Liberal Klaus Iohannis, who led the Balkan country
for 10 years in two five-year terms. But the surprise of the
evening came from Calin Georgescu, an independent candidate but
on extreme right-wing positions, who according to the first
still partial results seems to be closely trailing Premier
Ciolacu, leaving distanced in third place George Simion, the
other far-right candidate, a staunch Trumpian and admirer of
Gorgia Meloni, whom polls saw as Ciolacu's second and likely
challenger in the second round. With 40 percent of the ballots
counted, Ciolacu is given 23 percent, trailed by Georgescu with
an astonishing 22 percent, while Simion, leader of the
ultra-right sovereignist Aur party, is at 15 percent. He is
followed by Elena Lasconi, leader of the center-right Usr
formation, and former liberal premier Nicolae Ciuca, given 13
percent and 10 percent, respectively. Georgescu, pro-Russian and
accused of anti-Semitism and anti-Western impulses, was
virtually unknown politically until the day of his candidacy.
The percentage difference between Ciolacu and Georgescu remains
minimal, although it appears increasingly likely that it will be
the two of them who will challenge each other on the ballot in
two weeks. What has emerged from this first round, however, is
the strong assertion of the far-right, which placed its
candidates in second and third place in today's vote, and which
will be able to perform well in Romania's upcoming parliamentary
elections next Sunday, December 1. Good voter turnout, which at
53 percent was significantly higher than the 42.2 percent
turnout for the previous presidential elections in 2019. "The
result of the first round confirms that we have done what the
country needs," Premier Ciolacu, who remains the favorite for
ultimate success, said in the evening. It will now be crucial to
see how the right-wing forces will move for the Dec. 8
challenge, and what moves will be made by Lasconi in particular,
who has announced that he will talk "with all the right-wing
forces." Of course, there will also be to distribute the votes
of independent Mircea Geoana (5 percent), a former NATO
vice-president who presented himself as an independent, and the
representative of the Magyar minority, Hunor Kelemen.
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