2025 Romanian Presidential Election

Presidential elections were held in Romania on 4 May 2025, with a second round on 18 May 2025. Nicușor Dan and George Simion were the two candidates who advanced to the second round. Dan's term as the seventh president of Romania began on 26 May.

The election was scheduled in January 2025 following the annulment of the 2024 presidential election citing alleged Russian meddling in favour of first-round winner Călin Georgescu. The campaign was characterised by political instability and a series of protests against the annulment. On 7 March, Georgescu was barred from running, pending several criminal investigations, with the leader of the AUR party Simion announcing his candidacy in Georgescu's place.

Simion, who won 40.96% of the vote in the first round, faced Dan, who garnered 20.99% of the vote, in the second round that was held on 18 May 2025. Dan won with 53.6% against Simion's 46.4%.

On 20 May, having previously conceded the election and congratulated Dan on his victory, Simion stated that he had formally filed a contest of the results with the Romanian Constitutional Court, alleging mass voter fraud. Simion's request for the annulment of the election was rejected by the Court two days later, with Dan's presidency beginning on 26 May.

Background

Previous election annulled

On 6 December 2024, the 2024 presidential election, was annulled by the Constitutional Court of Romania, 48 hours before the second round was to be held, citing alleged Russian intervention on behalf of independent candidate, Călin Georgescu, who took a shock lead in the first round with 23%. CSAT said the campaign was "identical" to the online campaign launched by Russia before its invasion of Ukraine. On 20 December, an investigation was published showing that PNL had seemingly paid for one of the TikTok campaigns. PNL interim president Ilie Bolojan had stated however that the campaign was altered illegally to favor Georgescu, yet had not blamed the company they worked with for the alteration.

Second Ciolacu cabinet

After the parliamentary election, the second Ciolacu cabinet was formed as a minority coalition between PSD, PNL, UDMR and with confidence and supply from minority parties on 23 December 2024. Furthermore, Ilie Bolojan became President of the Senate of Romania and Ciprian-Constantin Șerban became the President of the Chamber of Deputies of Romania. The cabinet passed with a seven-vote majority and became official. Opposition leaders (most prominently George Simion and POT Leader Anamaria Gavrilă) called the cabinet illegitimate and for the resignation of incumbent president Klaus Iohannis.

President Iohannis' resignation and political crisis

Following the annulment of the 2024 presidential election in December, Iohannis was allowed to stay on as president by the Constitutional Court until his successor could be sworn in. However, on 10 February, following an attempt by members of parliament to impeach him, Iohannis announced that he would resign on 12 February. Senate president Ilie Bolojan assumed the role of acting president until the elections.

Georgescu barring and Simion candidacy

On 26 February 2025, Georgescu was stopped by police in traffic, while allegedly on his way to register for the election. He was charged with six offenses, including incitement to actions against the constitutional order, and support of fascist groups. Preemptive measures have been imposed, including judiciary control, and a 60-day ban on posting xenophobic and antisemitic materials to social networks (although such actions are already illegal in Romania). The police claimed to have found ten million U.S. dollars buried inside his bodyguard's house along with plane tickets to Moscow. On 7 March, Georgescu filed his candidacy to the Central Electoral Bureau, being rejected two days later which led to new protests. Consequently, George Simion arrived to the Central Electoral Bureau on 14 March accompanied by former Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki to file his candidacy after collecting 604,000 signatures, above the minimum requirement of 200,000. The CEB approved his candidacy on the following day, which was also the deadline for candidates to register, with Simion stating "We passed the BEC, now let's see if we pass the CCR and return to democracy". The CCR validated his candidacy one day later as well as the ones of Nicușor Dan and Victor Ponta.

Election date

The date of the first round had initially been publicly speculated by news media as 23 March 2025, with the runoff two weeks later (6 April 2025). In early January, these dates became obsolete, as the law for electing the president of Romania requires a minimum of 75 days between the election day and the day the election is called. On 8 January, the coalition fixed the dates of the election. The first round was scheduled to be held on 4 May 2025 with the second round two weeks later (18 May 2025).

Candidates

The Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) was constituted on 21 February 2025. The deadline for registering electoral alliances at the BEC was on 23 February 2025. By that deadline, only one electoral alliance was registered, between the governing PSD, PNL, and UDMR, called the Romania Forward Electoral Alliance (; A.Ro for short).

Persons who wished to run for the office could begin gathering the support signatures (a minimum of 200,000) after 23 February. The deadline for registering the candidacy at the BEC was 15 March 2025, at 23:59:59. All candidatures validated by the BEC had to pass the scrutiny of the Constitutional Court of Romania. On 19 March, Gavrilă withdrew her candidacy for president, endorsing Simion. A final list of all 11 candidates was released on the following day. On 22 March, a random draw took place, placing Simion on the first position on the ballot and Nicușor Dan on the last.

Advanced to runoff

Other registered candidates in ballot order

Registered, but later withdrawn candidates

Rejected candidates

The following is a list of people that have filed a candidacy at the Central Electoral Bureau and were rejected for not complying the legal requirements to be allowed to run.

Expressed interest publicly but failed to register in time

Declined to run

Debates

The debates started on 8 April 2025, four days after the start of the campaign.

Participation

The following is a table of participating candidates in each debate:

Opinion polls

Graphical summary

Second round

Dan vs Simion

First round (after BEC deadline)

Furthermore, in a poll among Moldovans with Romanian citizenship, 15.4% stated they would vote for Dan, 11.5% for Lasconi, 7.2% for Antonescu, 3.8% for Simion, 1.8% for Ponta and 0.8% for other candidates. 37.6% stated they were undecided, 18% that they would not vote and 3.9% did not answer. The poll was conducted by iData in April, with a sample of 1,027. According to iData, 500,000–550,000 Romanian citizens with the right to vote in the election lived in Moldova at the time.

First round (before BEC deadline)

Hypothetical second-round scenarios

Antonescu vs Simion

Ponta vs Simion

Antonescu vs Dan

Antonescu vs Ponta

Dan vs Lasconi

Dan vs Ponta

Lasconi vs Simion

Antonescu vs Georgescu

Bolojan vs Georgescu

Dan vs Gavrila

Dan vs Georgescu

Georgescu vs Lasconi

Endorsements

Political parties

Other endorsements

*Gheboasă

Conduct

As per Romanian law, citizens could vote at the designated polling station inside the municipality, town or commune where they reside or at any other station outside of said jurisdiction, on a supplementary list. The counting process was recorded.

Fifty-three Romanian politically non-affiliated organisations were accredited by the Permanent Electoral Authority to observe the election process. The AEP additionally approved access for 87 foreign journalists from outlets such as Sky News, Associated Press, Reuters, France 24 and the BBC as well as 159 representatives of the following organisations:

Results were updated in real time on the Permanent Electoral Authority website with information from the 19,943 polling stations. There were no major incidents reported by observers during voting hours or the counting process. Statements of preliminary conclusions from the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE mention that " e voting process was evaluated positively, with observers finding the process to be conducted in an efficient, transparent, and professional manner", while also noting the presence of online disinformation and media bias during the campaign. FEC member Trey Trainor praised the election process he observed, stating that: "Every vote was cast using a paper ballot, and the entire ballot-counting process was not only done in the presence of poll watchers from every political party but also recorded on video to guarantee transparency. There were no delays in reporting results. In fact, the entire country completed its electoral count within hours of polls closing — a testament to both the simplicity and the integrity of the process."

Results

First round

By county

Maps

Voter demographics

Second round

By county

Maps

Voter demographics

Aftermath

First round

Following the results, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu announced that PSD would leave A.Ro, and he resigned from the position of prime minister, which resulted in the collapse of the coalition. However, he continued to serve as the PSD leader.

Lasconi got significantly less votes than in the 2024 elections, scoring only 2.68% of the vote. Subsequently, the next day after the elections, she announced she would step down as president of the Save Romania Union.

Simion's victory in the first round also had significant economic implications, with the Bucharest Stock Exchange experiencing substantial losses and the National Bank of Romania investing over 2 billion euros in stabilising the leu and preventing depreciation. Former Romanian president Traian Băsescu criticised the Romanian diaspora for Simion's victory among its voters. He called the attitude of the majority of the diaspora "dishonest", stating that: "They live in the West and say: come on, you who live at home, come on, go to daddy Putin, go to Putin!".

Simion was congratulated on his first-round win by Mateusz Morawiecki, former Polish prime minister and current president of the European Conservatives and Reformists, Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and French MEP Marion Maréchal.

Analysis

According to Moldovan analyst Ion Tăbîrță, past actions and declarations by Simion indicated an unpredictable and potentially damaging approach to Moldova–Romania relations. According to him, with Simion's election, Moldova could lose Romania's support, including its path to European integration. He added that Romania would lose its role as Moldova's "defender" in the eyes of the European Union, as it would no longer have the same image within the bloc. According to Moldovan analyst Mihaela Sirețanu, relations between the two countries could become tense, also considering Simion's entry ban on Moldova, which was to be in force until 2028. Both Tăbîrță and Sirețanu agreed that Dan's victory would be more favourable for Moldova and its relationship with Romania.

BBC's Central Europe Correspondent Nick Thorpe reported that many voters who backed Georgescu in the annulled election are thought to have switched their allegiance to Simion and that the two voted together. He further added in the second round, Simion could also attract voters who backed fourth-placed former Prime Minister Victor Ponta, a retired Social Democrat who adopted a "Romania First" campaign.

Second round

On the day of the second round, Andrei Țărnea, spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania, denounced Russian interference during the election. He stated that a viral fake news campaign on Telegram and other social media was seeking to influence the electoral process, something which was expected as he stated, with the Romanian authorities having proved these news false according to him. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated this situation was alarming because "it appears to have been created with the aim of undermining citizens' confidence in democratic institutions and processes". Furthermore, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Romania stated that a clip had been distributed on TikTok claiming that French troops in Romania, stationed at NATO's Cincu Training Center, were secretly wearing Romanian Gendarmerie uniforms to intervene on Romania's internal affairs, which the ministry stated was false and "pure disinformation".

With a final voter turnout of 64.72% (which translates to 11,641,544 votes), the run-off winner was certified on 18 May by the Central Electoral Bureau to be Dan, with 6,168,642 votes.

Simion had prematurely declared victory on Facebook with a post reading: "I won!!! I am the new President of Romania and I am giving back the power to the Romanians!" He later conceded the election, stating "I would like to congratulate my opponent, Nicușor Dan. He won the election, it was the will of the Romanian people". Two days later, Simion demanded the annulment of the election, citing "external influence by state and non-state actors" as grounds for annulment, drawing parallels to the court's previous annulment of the December 2024 election over alleged Russian interference, referring to the election as a "farce". On May 22, the Constitutional Court rejected Simion's request and upheld the initial results, thus validating Dan's election. Dan was sworn-in on 26 May in front of the Romanian Parliament.

On 21 May, seven out of the 21 deputies and five out of the seven senators of the right-wing populist Party of Young People left the party, bringing the parliamentary group in the Senate below the minimum threshold of members and causing its dissolution.

International reactions

Several leaders from across Europe congratulated Dan on his election; they included French president Emmanuel Macron, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Moldovan president Maia Sandu, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied claims by George Simion and Telegram founder Pavel Durov that it had interfered with the election.

Analysis

Analysts attributed Dan's unexpected victory in the second round to the higher voter turnout. Dan defeated Simion particularly among urban voters, women and ethnic minorities. ''The New York Times'' columnist Andrew Higgins also opined that Dan's victory indicated that voters "wanted a middle path between bitterly polarized political camps", while the ''Atlantic Council'' argued that Dan benefited from not being associated with the ruling government, and that "Romanians have voted for Europe and democracy, not nationalism, but they also seem to want change". Political analyst and AUR senate leader Petrișor Peiu attributed the result to Dan's strong mobilisation efforts as well as "less inspired" decisions by the AUR.

See also

* 2024–2025 Romanian election annulment protests
* 2025 elections in the European Union

Notes

References

{{Romanian elections

Presidential
Romanian presidential election
Presidential elections in Romania