After all the sturm und drang over annulled results and canceled candidates in Romania’s madcap, seven-month run at electing a new president, it turns out that the establishment-blessed, independent candidate, Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan, walked away as victor after yesterday’s second round of voting.
And the European Union heaved a huge sigh of relief.
Despite ultra-nationalist George Simion, of the AUR party, claiming victory earlier on, Nicusor Dan, the progressive mayor of Bucharest who ran as an independent, looks set to be Romania’s next president, taking 53.82 percent of the second-round vote. Simion came in at 46.18 percent.
“Russia, don’t forget that Romania is not yours!” shouted thousands, chanting Nicușor Dan’s name outside his campaign headquarters, according to the Transtelex news portal.
Dan told his supporters: “Today’s election was won by a community of Romanians who want profound change in Romania, the functioning of state institutions, the reduction of corruption, a thriving economic environment, a community that wants a society of dialogue and not hatred.”
Interestingly enough, Dan’s pretty solid thumping of ‘far-right’ George Simion was made possible by a massive voter turnout bolstered by the presence of a huge number of Transylvanian Hungarians (and wasn’t that fun to write, lol).
There are so many ancient undercurrents and still simmering historical ties that play into every last move made in the Balkans, it’s simply mindblowing trying to watch for the curveball that blows the ‘sure thing’ all to bits.
In this election, it turned out that what in good measure helped defeat ‘sure thing’ Simion were his own expressed ‘anti-Hungarian’ sentiments. The large population of Romanians in Transylvania of Hungarian extraction has Hungarian schools and Hungarian-language public administration, and were worried those minority rights would be lost if Sinion came to power.
So they came out en masse, doing their part at the ballot box to ensure he didn’t.
The mayor of Sepsiszentgyörg, a Romanian city in Transylvania, said that ethnic Hungarians in Romania rallied against George Simion over the weekend, and helped secure his defeat. However, hard times are also likely still ahead with Nicușor Dan, the election winner, now serving as president.
Árpád Antal, the mayor of Sepsiszentgyörgy, told Romanian outlet Maszol that the Hungarian community in Romania’s Transylvania has a strong survival instinct, and together with the silent Romanian majority, they managed to keep Simion out of power.
“It is no exaggeration to say that we have just had an election of historic significance. The Hungarians of Transylvania felt the responsibility, as they voted for Nicușor Dan in an incredibly high number – more than 600,000 people,” said Antal.
Simion, who backed Donald Trump and supported cutting weapon supplies to Ukraine, is known for his history of anti-Hungarian statements. The country’s large ethnic minority of Hungarians, in turn, raced to vote against him in large numbers in the second round. Simion lost by eight points despite clearly winning the first round, mostly due to Romanian voters who turned out in historically large numbers.
That’s democracy, and maybe if the powers that be had left things well enough alone, the result would have been the same without having to manipulate the crap out of the system because the numbers of people who participated in the final round, the one that mattered, far surpassed what anyone was expecting.
That’s the thing – we will never know.
Best of luck to incoming President Dan. He has an economic mess on his hands, exacerbated by the effects of a lingering drought, not to mention regional tensions with Hungary. However, Romania’s full Schengen Zone membership began this year, and economists forecast potential to the upside if they can get their act together and make use of available EU funds wisely for infrastructure investment.
…Another major factor that has received little attention due to the political crisis at the end of last year is Romania’s full membership of the Schengen Area, starting January 1, 2025. This could boost economic growth by facilitating international trade (including exports of Romanian-manufactured goods), attracting new investors who can now access more easily Western Europe’s logistics network, and encouraging policymakers to accelerate infrastructure development, which would enhance transport conditions across Romania’s western border.
“Due to all these considerations, we estimate a GDP growth rate of 1.5% in 2025. However, while this is an improvement over 2024, it remains far below Romania’s long-term economic potential of 3-4% annual growth in GDP. In addition, domestic and international political and economic conditions will put additional pressure on the country’s economic performance this year,” concludes UBB Vice-Rector Levente Szász.
Swinging all the way across Europe to the Atlantic coast, Portugal also held a snap set of elections last night, which went sideways for the 40-year long ruling coalition known as ‘The Bipartisanship.’
A feisty little start-up ‘right-wing’ populist group called ‘Chega,’ founded only in 2019, went from taking 1.3% in that first election to 23% and tying for second place yesterday, an absolutely astonishing rise and smashing success in a sclerotic party system.
In only six short years, the populists matched the left-wingers who had ‘dominated Portuguese politics for decades.’
The Democratic Alliance (AD), a center-right coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (PSD), has emerged as the winner of Portugal’s snap legislative election, securing 89 of the 230 parliamentary seats, with four still to be allocated from overseas constituencies. The result marks a significant gain over the 80 seats AD held in the previous legislature.
But the biggest political earthquake of the night came from the populist Chega party, which surged to a historic 58 seats — matching the number won by the Socialist Party (PS), the traditional left-wing force that has dominated Portuguese politics for decades. Both parties are now in a dead heat for second place, pending final results from voters abroad.
Chega’s leader, André Ventura, celebrated what he called a historic result. “We did what no party had done in Portugal: Today we can officially declare before the whole country and with certainty that bipartisanship is over,” he told supporters, declaring the election the end of the two-party system.
“Portugal is ours,” he concluded. Ventura also promised that “nothing will be the same as before in Portugal” and reaffirmed his ambition, saying, “I will not stop until I am prime minister of Portugal.”
Nobody saw that coming.
Deportations are coming ✈️✈️✈️🏃🏿🏃🏿🏃🏿
— 𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐔𝐍𝐄𝐒 (@Antunes1) May 18, 2025
Immigration was front and center in this election. And the blackout surely didn’t help the establishment’s case.
Forty years in power, the socialists finally got thumped.
Portugal’s right-wing parties have triumphed in the country’s third snap general election in three years. https://t.co/LIdiZJdZsc
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) May 19, 2025
The Socialist Party (PS) leader resigned, and the Chega party president, André Ventura, who’d collapsed twice at different events during the latter part of the campaign from exhaustion, was positively exultant. He took a shot at pollsters who given them no chance.
…The election’s biggest loser was the Socialist Party, dropping from 28.7 to 23 per cent of the vote, its worst result in the last 40 years and the party’s third-worst result ever.
In reaction to the beating, Socialist Party president Pedro Nuno Santos resigned.
“I take responsibility, as I have always done. I will therefore ask for internal elections, in which I will not be a candidate,” he said in his speech during election night.
…“Nothing will be the same as before in Portugal”, Ventura said. “The old guard is truly ending.”
With the polls underestimating his party’s success, Ventura took a swipe at pollsters. “From today, no one will believe in any poll.” he said.
“I warned in time about an injustice that was being committed against more than a million voters.” “It’s time to demand accountability from these companies in Portugal,” he added.
“We really did what no other party had done in Portugal. Today we can officially declare before the entire country with certainty that bipartisanship in Portugal is over,” Ventura emphasised.
As happy as all that news sounds, it wouldn’t be European ‘democracy’ without the minority winners playing cranky pants about working with the second place finishers if they weren’t up to snuff, would it?
This go-round is, sadly, no different so far. Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, a supposed centrist whose failed confidence vote triggered the snap election leading to this result, is vowing to use a firewall to ice out the upstarts who won second place.
Portugal’s snap elections have redrawn the country’s political map. The center Democratic Alliance (AD), led by Luís Montenegro, emerged as the most voted force after the collapse of the Socialist Party (PS), which, for the first time ever, ended up tied in terms of seats with the patriotic party Chega. A scenario unthinkable just a few years ago—back in 2019, Chega was barely present in parliament.
With 32.10% of the vote and 89 seats, the AD has claimed victory, although still far from the 116 needed for an outright majority. The Socialists plunged to 24.38%, securing only 58 seats—20 fewer than in the previous legislature—and, for the first time, tied with Chega, which achieved a historic 22.56% and a spectacular surge of nearly five points, consolidating itself as the third political force and the spearhead of the new patriotic right in Portugal.
This result opens a complex scenario. Montenegro has reiterated his refusal to negotiate with Chega, sticking to a so-called firewall approach, despite the numbers clearly pointing toward a potential majority through a right-wing alliance. The situation bears a resemblance to Austria, where the mainstream center eventually agreed to govern alongside the patriots but then turned to the socialists. In Portugal, the center-right must now decide: will it continue blocking Chega and govern with the left, or will it embrace a natural majority with the new right?
All too familiar.
🇵🇹 Yesterday, #Portugal elected a new parliament for the third time since 2022, following a confident vote against Prime Minister Luís #Montenegro.#AD reached again first place gaining votes, while #PS lost and received their worst result since 1987 while #Chega made their best. pic.twitter.com/pbRJu5JdwE
— All About Elections 🗳️🌍 (@electionsstats) May 19, 2025
The EU held the high ground this weekend, but just barely.
Pro-EU forces prevail on election Super Sunday but far right gains ground: A far-right surge in Portugal triggered ‘a disaster of historic proportions’ for the Socialists. https://t.co/BwZyssvX39 pic.twitter.com/h24k0ra6lf
— Euractiv (@Euractiv) May 19, 2025
Populists are breathing down its neck so heavily, Brussels might need a cool rag to get the heat off.
