Romania gets new pro-European president

A pro-European Union centrist has pulled off an upset win in Romania's presidential election, beating out a hard-right nationalist who had channelled people's anger at the political establishment to surge in the polls.

But the new leader now must contend with deep societal divisions that the tense vote laid bare.

Final results from Sunday's presidential race showed Nicusor Dan winning 53.6 per cent of the vote, ahead of the hard-right candidate George Simion, who during the campaign portrayed his movement as championing conservative values like patriotism, sovereignty and the family, and who styled himself as the Romanian analogue to US President Donald Trump.

The victory for the pro-EU candidate marked a significant comeback in a tense election that many viewed as a geopolitical choice for the former Eastern Bloc country between East or West.

But as Dan, a 55-year-old mathematician, pro-Western reformist and mayor of Bucharest, takes over Romania's presidency, fault lines remain in the country where endemic corruption, inequality and an erosion of trust in traditional institutions and parties have fuelled a broad rejection of the political establishment.

Dan's decisive win was a major turnaround from the first round of elections on May 4, where Simion — a nationalist who has advocated for uniting Romania with neighbouring Moldova and is banned from entering Ukraine — had nearly double Dan's share of votes to become the clear front-runner for the second round.

Simion's surge to prominence came after Romania's first attempt to hold the presidential election late last year in which far-right outsider Calin Georgescu topped first-round polls. The country's political landscape was upended after a top court voided the ballot, alleging electoral violations and Russian interference.

While Simion was considered the favourite for the second round, a high voter turnout of 64.7 per cent in the ballot — more than in any Romanian election of the past quarter-century — is thought to have benefited Dan.

Adding to the high turnout were approximately 1.6 million votes from members of Romania's large diaspora, which is primarily concentrated in Western Europe.

Speaking to ecstatic supporters in the early hours of Monday following his victory, Dan struck a reformist tone, saying Romania was beginning "a new chapter, and it needs every one of you".

As a member of the EU and one of the easternmost members of the NATO military alliance, Romania plays a pivotal role in Western security infrastructure — especially since Russia's full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022.

After that invasion, NATO bolstered its presence on Europe's eastern flank by sending additional multinational battlegroups to Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia, and Bucharest has played an increasingly prominent role in the alliance, donating a Patriot missile system to Ukraine and opening an international training hub for F-16 jet pilots from allied countries.