Cliff Notes
- Nicosur Dan’s election as Romania’s president marks a significant shift, as his comprehensive victory defied earlier predictions favouring his rival, populist George Simion.
- The electorate expressed concerns over a return to authoritarianism reminiscent of the country’s communist past, highlighting a desire for stability and alignment with the European Union.
- Dan faces the immediate challenge of uniting a politically divided nation while overseeing a strategic member state within both the EU and NATO.
Romania’s new president Nicosur Dan finally looks like he’s enjoying life after a campaign full of rancour and division | World News
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The roads in the heart of Bucharest were swaying. People were singing, laughing, and looking up at a balcony, waiting for the next president to appear.
In the end, he took to the street, walking along the pavement, high-fiving everyone within reach.
After a campaign full of rancour and division, Nicosur Dan, a 55-year-old mathematician, finally looked like he was enjoying life.
His victory was more comprehensive than most had predicted. A week ago, the favourite to win this election was his rival, the populist George Simion, but Dan gradually rose in the polls.
Among the crowd, there was a sense that some had voted because they wanted him to win, and others had backed him because they didn’t like Mr Simion’s Donald Trump-inspired brand of strongman leadership. Some even felt it brought back memories of the brutal communist past that once cowed this country.
“I have felt overwhelmed and scared,” said Nicoletta. “For the last couple of weeks we lived in terror of returning to something we had to live with for 45 years.”
Alongside her was Ada – one of many, many young voters I met in the crowd. She told me she felt like she was “dreaming”, after waking up in the morning “worried that the nightmare would not finish”.
But now, she was thrilled – convinced that Mr Dan can reinvigorate his country: “We put our trust in him because we don’t want to leave the country – we are Romanians by home, we feel Romanian, we think Romanian.”
There were many flags here with the blue and yellow of the European Union – few doubt that Mr Dan had more affection for the EU than Mr Simion.
I met a couple who had both draped themselves in EU flags and told me that “we hope we will be going the European way”.
Another couple told me they had been terrified that Mr Simion would take Romania out of the EU – a claim he flatly denied when I met him the day before the election.
We had spoken to Mr Simion earlier in the day, when he seemed quietly confident of victory.
“People are fed up with normal politicians,” he told me in the shadow of Bucharest’s enormous parliament – the biggest building in Europe.
A landslide, he felt sure, was on the way.
Around him were populist politicians and activists from around the world – including Britain, America, Italy, France, Poland and the Netherlands.
They cheered him, and agreed that victory was within sight. And then came the exit poll, and the realisation that the momentum of his dominant triumph in the first round of this election had faded.
Still, Mr Simion insisted he would win, naming himself as the Romanian president on Facebook.
It was only in the small hours that Mr Simion admitted that he had been beaten by a million votes, emerging to declare that he would keep fighting.
“I will be there in all of the battles we have ahead of us – this work is just starting and I will be there with every one of you,” he said, punching the air before walking off.
He wants to remain the leader for, as he puts it, “patriots, sovereignists and conservatives” who want to return to “democracy and common sense”.
Romania has had a turbulent six months, starting with the decision to cancel the last presidential election because of suspected Russian interference, and then to ban Calin Georgescu, the man who allegedly benefited from that Moscow master plan.
Even some of Mr Georgescu’s most avowed opponents felt uneasy that an election had been cancelled in that way.
Then the schism between the politics of Mr Simion and Mr Dan split the country, as did the lingering sense that Romanian democracy was under scrutiny.
So now the challenge is to unite and heal this nation – a strategically crucial member of both the EU and NATO.
And that is Mr Dan’s most immediate challenge. As he was soaking up the cacophony and affection last night, a group of his supporters were opening champagne and pouring out glasses in the street, toasting their new president.
For Mr Dan, victory is a great achievement, but if he is to succeed in this job, he will need many more great achievements ahead.
To win is one thing; to prosper is quite another.