Ultranationalist Candidate Scores Stunning First-Round Win in Romania Election

Romanian ultranationalist Călin Georgescu won a shock first-round victory in the country’s presidential elections, according to official results published Monday afternoon.

Georgescu won with 22.94 percent of the vote. He was followed by liberal reformist candidate Elena Lasconi on 19.18 percent in second place, after she edged ahead of center-left Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu on 19.15 percent — a difference of just over 2,700 votes. Another hard-right candidate, George Simion, trailed in fourth with 13.86 percent support.

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An early exit poll suggested that Ciolacu and Lasconi were set to qualify for the presidential runoff but Georgescu surged into the lead as vote counting continued Sunday night, heralding a result that is set to upend Romanian politics.

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Georgescu, extremely religious and nationalistic, campaigned on reducing Romania’s reliance on imports, supporting farmers and increasing the domestic production of food and energy.

He has also argued that the EU and NATO do not properly represent Romanian interests and claimed Russia’s war in Ukraine, a Romanian neighbor, is manipulated by American military companies.

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He leveraged TikTok to rally voters around him. “He managed to convince them by a combination of messianic speech, delivered in an elegant way, so as to capitalize on people’s frustrations,” said political analyst Radu Magdin.

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