Hard-right populist takes shock lead in Romania’s presidential vote

NATO critic Calin Georgescu on track to face pro-European Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu in run-off vote next month.

A hard-right populist known for his opposition to the European Union and NATO has surged into the lead in Romania’s presidential election in a shock result that throws the country’s pro-Western outlook into doubt.

With 98 percent of ballots counted, Calin Georgescu had nearly 23 percent of the vote, slightly ahead of centre-left Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu with about 20 percent, partial results from the Central Electoral Bureau showed on Sunday.

Elena Lasconi of the centre-right Save Romania Union party was running third with nearly 19 percent, followed by George Simion of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians with 14 percent.

The partial results put Georgescu, 62, on track to face off against Ciolacu in a run-off vote on December 8.

The outcome comes as a major upset as Georgescu, a relatively unknown figure who held a number of positions in Romania’s Ministry of Environment during the 1990s, had attracted only about 5 percent support in opinion polls ahead of the election.

Running as an independent, Georgescu was largely absent from mainstream media and relied heavily on social media platforms such as TikTok to reach voters.

Exit polls had shown Ciolacu, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, in the lead and Lasconi in second place in a race dominated by the economy and the rising cost of living.

A former member of the right-wing populist Alliance for Uniting Romanians party, Georgescu has called for an end to aid for Ukraine – which is in the midst of battling a Russian invasion – and criticised the presence of a NATO missile defence station on Romanian soil.

In a 2021 interview, he called the missile defence shield a “shame of diplomacy” and said the North Atlantic alliance would not protect its members in the event of an attack by Russia.

He has also attracted controversy over his views on Romania’s past, including that Ion Antonescu, the country’s World War II-era leader who joined forces with Adolf Hitler, should be seen as a national hero.

Georgescu on Sunday said the vote showed that the people had “cried out for peace”.

“And they shouted very loudly, extremely loudly,” he said.

Romania, an EU and NATO member, shares a 650km-long (400 miles) border with Ukraine and has experienced repeated breaches of its airspace by Russian drones.

Bucharest has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, providing Kyiv with military aid, including a Patriot air defence battery, and establishing a training centre to train Ukrainian marines.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies