With hours to go before Romanians go to the polls to choose a new president, all signs point to a race that will go down to the proverbial wire — and whose outcome will inarguably have a big impact on the European Union and the U.S.
According to a final AtlasIntel poll, centrist Nicusor Dan, mayor of Bucharest, has a wafer-thin edge (48.7 to 47.7 percent) in the runoff with George Simion — leader of the nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) Party and top vote-getter in the initial balloting May 4.
The contest Sunday was brought about when the Romanian Supreme Court last year stunned the world by canceling the first election in which the top vote-getter was nationalist newcomer Calin Georgescu. The cancellation last year had the connivance of the European Commission and was based on still-murky evidence that Georgescu received illegal funding from Russia.
The court decision was condemned by the MAGA movement in the U.S., with both Elon Musk and JD Vance saying the cancellation of the election was a sign of ailing democracy in Romania.
Banned from running in the new election, Georgescu has strongly endorsed Simion, who placed fourth in last year’s balloting. Should Simion, 38, emerge triumphant on Sunday, he has strongly hinted he would name Georgescu prime minister — assuming the parliament, where Simion’s AUR so far lacks a majority, confirms him.
A "President Simion" would clearly be skeptical of assisting Ukraine in its war with Russia — just like Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban — who has endorsed his fellow nationalist, a critic of the European Union and NATO.
Long dubbed the "Donald Trump of Romania," Simion vows to "Make Romania Great Again" — in Romanian terms, an obvious reference to his platform plank vowing to annex territories in neighboring Moldova that are inhabited by Romanians. Simion's positions on Moldova and Ukraine have led both countries to deny him a visa on the grounds he is violating their sovereignty.
Much like HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Simion is a vigorous opponent of vaccines.
Fellow EU member-nations have made it clear they prefer Dan to Simion. French President Emmanuel Macron made clear last week his feelings about the race, saying that if what he called the "pro-Russia, anti-European candidate" won in Romania, the "consequences for Moldova would, of course, be extremely damaging."
Simion, who has strongly denied he is pro-Russian, hit back at Macron and charged the French president with "dictatorial tendencies." At a press conference in Paris flanked by European Parliament Member and fellow nationalist Marion Maréchal, said of Macron: "You are not an emperor, you are not loved even by the French people, so these attacks...are not what we should do in a united Europe, in the future European Union."
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