By Claudia Bădulescu, Free University of Brussels, Institute of European Studies.
Shortly after one o’clock on the morning of May 5, 2025, the Central Electoral Bureau in Bucharest released near‑final figures from the first round of Romania’s presidential election. They read like the script of an improbable political thriller. George Simion, the thirty‑eight‑year‑old leader of the ultra‑nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), had captured a little over forty per cent of the valid ballots – around 3.6 million votes, more than any extremist candidate has ever received in post‑communist Romania. Reformist capital‑city mayor Nicușor Dan trailed far behind on roughly twenty‑one per cent, his slender advantage over the governing coalition’s veteran nominee Crin Antonescu measured in the tens of thousands. Former prime minister Victor Ponta limped in with thirteen per cent, while the once‑celebrated pro‑European hopeful Elena Lasconi, deserted by her own party, slipped below three per cent.
For seasoned Romania‑watchers the result felt less like an ordinary swing than a tectonic fault opening beneath the political establishment. In the annulled vote of November 2024 Simion had struggled to reach 1.3 million ballots, running as the understudy to hard‑line ideologue Călin Georgescu. Now, five months later, he had single‑handedly exceeded the combined November tally of the entire far‑right camp and opened a yawning 1.8‑million‑vote chasm over Dan. The turnout – just under fifty‑four per cent – was almost identical to last year’s poll, which means the far right did not profit from a sudden electoral surge but from a massive reallocation of disaffected voters.
How Did We Get Here?
Traditional explanations for radical‑right breakthroughs rarely apply cleanly to Romania. The country is not facing a migration crisis; less than two per cent of its resident population are foreign nationals, while millions of Romanians themselves live abroad. The macro‑economy has been expanding steadily – GDP grew 2.7 per cent in 2024 and unemployment hovers near a record low. Eurobarometer surveys routinely rank Romanians among the most EU‑friendly peoples in Central Europe. Yet Simion’s campaign thrived on an incendiary cocktail of ultra‑sovereigntist rhetoric, anti‑Brussels grievance and barely veiled admiration for Vladimir Putin’s defiance of the West.
Three deeper dynamics help explain the paradox. First, after three and a half decades of alternation between the Social‑Democrats (PSD) and various liberal avatars (PNL, USR, splinters) many voters no longer distinguish between parties. Corruption scandals, recycled personalities and the grand PSD‑PNL coalition forged in 2023 created the impression of a self‑serving cartel. The constitutional court’s decision last December to annul the first‑round result on grounds of ‘foreign interference’ fed a growing conviction that the establishment would bend rules to keep outsiders at bay. Simion framed his bid as a popular uprising against a perfidious elite: the slogan “Nu ne furați viitorul!” – Don’t steal our future – became omnipresent on social media.
Second, AUR perfected digital grievance entrepreneurship. TikTok, once a back‑channel for teenage dance clips, is now Romania’s loudest political megaphone. Party strategists saturated the platform with short videos featuring Simion praying before Orthodox icons, live‑streaming confrontations with police or proclaiming solidarity with striking miners. Independent researchers counted more than eighty‑five thousand clips tagged with pro‑Simion hashtags during the forty‑eight hours surrounding election day; rivals combined produced fewer than fifteen thousand. Algorithms rewarded the emotional intensity of the content: folk tunes, tricolour flags, denunciations of “globalist traitors”. Mainstream television, still influential among older voters, struggled to counter the viral wave.
Third, the diaspora turned decisively towards radical protest. By Sunday night more than 970,000 Romanians had voted abroad, a historic turnout that is 150,000 more than the number registered in November 2024. Exit‑poll data show that nearly six in ten overseas ballots went to Simion. Interviews conducted by HotNews correspondents in Malaga and Vienna reveal a potent blend of economic resentment (“our children are born in debt”) and civilisational pride (“we have seen how Europeans live and want the same standards at home”). AUR has spent years cultivating diaspora networks through cultural associations, church events and targeted Telegram channels; the payoff became visible on Sunday night.
The Candidate of TikTok Nationalism
George Simion’s personal trajectory encapsulates the new style of Romanian populism. Raised in a modest family in Focșani, he earned notoriety as an activist for reunification with Moldova, organising disruptive protests across the Prut River. In parliament he blended pugnacious street theatre – storming elections offices, recording live from plenary rows – with performative piety. His embrace of Călin Georgescu, suspended last year after the Kremlin‑linked influencer was barred from running, allowed Simion to inherit a ready‑made mythos of spiritual restoration and ecological nationalism. The imagery is carefully choreographed: embroidered shirts, medieval fortresses, sometimes a horse. Yet the movement’s organisational backbone is ruthlessly modern: micro‑targeted Facebook groups, data‑harvesting websites and a merchandise line that ships worldwide.
The campaign’s ideological palette mixes Orthodox mysticism, conspiracy theories about Western decadence, promises of debt relief for young families, denunciations of “foreign‑owned banks” and calls for “strategic neutrality” in the Ukraine war. Of over thirty‑three distinct policy pledges, none was accompanied by costing. It hardly mattered. The emotional appeal lay in a single refrain: Romania, the stolen homeland, must be reclaimed.
Nicușor Dan’s Narrow Road
Facing Simion on May 18 is the softly spoken mathematician‑turned‑mayor of Bucharest. Dan campaigns on technocratic competence: repairing tramlines, digitising permits, protecting urban green spaces. He won the capital in 2020 and in 2024 by uniting fragmented centre‑right clans; replicating that feat nationally is exponentially harder. For more than a decade Dan has embodied an anti‑corruption, pro‑EU civic spirit, yet he lacks a nationwide party machine. His hope rests on a rapid convergence of three electorates: Antonescu’s ageing provincial voters, Ponta’s disgruntled left‑leaners and the scattered liberal middle class who backed Lasconi. If every one of those ballots slid effortlessly into Dan’s column, he could reach fifty‑seven per cent – mathematically sufficient. Romanian politics, however, rarely obeys Euclidean logic.
One immediate hurdle is apathy. First‑round participation was under fifty‑five per cent; Simion’s devotees are unlikely to stay home, whereas centrist voters often do. Another obstacle lies abroad: Dan lost the diaspora by thirty‑three points. His team must now race through parishes and community halls in Madrid, Milan or Munich, persuading émigrés that a Simion presidency could jeopardise the visa‑free mobility they cherish. The PSD‑PNL apparatus has promised to mobilise its mayors for Dan, but the alliance’s grass‑roots enthusiasm is tepid; local barons fear being punished next year if they openly campaign for a candidate who spent years lambasting their patronage networks.
Europe Holds Its Breath
The shock in Bucharest reverberated instantly in EU capitals. AUR’s programme envisages referendums on ‘repatriating sovereignty’ from Brussels, re‑negotiating green‑transition targets and suspending arms deliveries to Ukraine. While the Romanian president cannot unilaterally quit NATO or the EU, he chairs the Supreme Defence Council, appoints the anti‑corruption prosecutor and wields veto authority over legislation. A Simion presidency would thus place an unpredictable gatekeeper at the eastern flank of both unions at a moment when Russian hybrid pressure is intensifying.
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Claudia Bădulescu is a post-doctoral researcher at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), linked to the Institute of European Studies (IEE). Her research explores the administrative reforms and the democratic consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989. She also works on the european integration process.