Nationalist Leader Simion Cleared To Run in Romania’s Presidential Race

AUR leader George Simion
George Simion on Facebook, 14 March 2025

Romania’s Constitutional Court has approved George Simion, leader of the nationalist opposition AUR party, as a candidate for May’s repeated presidential elections. The court dismissed all three appeals against his candidature on the evening of Sunday, March 16th, although the final confirmation is not expected to be published until Tuesday.

Simion submitted his candidacy last week, just days before the final deadline, after the Court banned the party’s original candidate and the winner of the annulled December election, Călin Georgescu, from participating in the race.

In addition, the leader of a smaller nationalist party (POT), Anamaria Gavrilă, also submitted her file to maximize the chance that the nationalist opposition will have a candidate on the ballots. While her approval is still pending, an agreement between AUR and POT stipulates that if both candidates qualify, then Gavrilă will stand down to unite the nationalist vote under one name.

Underlining the momentum behind the banned frontrunner, Simion and Gavrilă collectively gathered over one million signatures in just a matter of days last week. Accompanied by former Polish PM and ECR president Mateusz Morawicki in Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau, Simion submitted over 600,000 signatures—three times as many as the required amount for a candidacy—while Gavrilă put down another 400,000 a day later.

On Sunday, the Court also cleared the candidacy of former socialist PM Victor Ponta, who will run as an independent, while at the same time reaffirming the earlier ban on the SOS Romania leader Diana Șoșoacă, who is considered too “extreme” even by the other nationalist parties.

According to the latest poll, published on Monday, March 17th, Simion will likely win the first round on May 4th but would lose the runoff two weeks later.

The AUR leader (and ECR Vice President) is favored by 30.4%, followed by Nicușor Dan, the independent liberal mayor of Bucharest running on an anti-corruption platform, with 26%. Crin Antonescu, the joint candidate of the ruling establishment parties, PSD (S&D) and PNL (EPP), is in third place with less than 18%.

In turn, the ex-socialist PM Victor Ponta, who has tried to copy Trump by launching a “Romania First” campaign, complete with red baseball caps, is in fourth place with 9%, while the liberal USR (Renew) leader Elena Lasconi—who advanced into the second round with Georgescu back in December with a good chance of winning the presidency—now stands at only 4%. 

Therefore, unless there’s a significant shake-up in the coming weeks, the May 18th runoff will be between the two main anti-establishment candidates, Simion and Dan, with no government candidate in the final round—an identical situation to that which may have prompted the annulment of the December election in the first place.

The polls also show that Simion will have a tough time beating Dan for the presidency if it comes down to a two-way race between the two, as all ‘pro-European’ parties would unite behind the mayor against the nationalists. Dan is favored by 54% over Simion’s 46%, which is still possible to flip but will not be easy.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/george-simion-romania-presidential-run/

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