Romania’s presidential elections are heading towards a shock result after the first round held on Sunday, November 24. With about 80% of the votes counted and centralized, independent candidate Calin Georgescu is in the lead, ahead of social democrat prime minister Marcel Ciolacu.

Calin Georgescu, 63, has a doctorate in pedology and has worked as a specialist in the environment conservation sector. His messages position him as a candidate with strong nationalistic.

The partial results indicated over 1.73 million votes for Georgescu, representing 22% of the 7.85 million ballots counted so far, versus 1.64 million votes (20.9%) for PM Ciolacu.

Reformist candidate Elena Lasconi (USR) was third, with 1.33 million votes (17% of the total), followed by far-right leader George Simion (AUR), with 1.13 million votes (14.4% of the total).

Liberal leader Nicolae Ciuca was fifth (9.3%) and independent Mircea Geoana, the former NATO deputy secretary general, was only sixth (6.0%).

If the current hierarchy doesn’t change, the second round will be fought between independent Calin Georgescu and PSD’s Marcel Ciolacu. However, there were still almost 2 million ballots to count and centralize, mostly from Bucharest and bigger cities and from Diaspora, which may help the USR’s Elena Lasconi close the gap on the top two.

The first results coming from abroad from countries such as Germany, Italy and Spain point to an overwhelming vote for Georgescu, according to data centralized by the platform rezultatevot.ro. Meanwhile, the first results from Bucharest, where only 25% of the ballots have been centralized, indicate a score of around 33% for Elena Lasconi, about double compared with PM Marcel Ciolacu. This may result in a tight race for second place between Lasconi and Ciolacu, currently split by about 300,000 votes.

If the PM fails to make it to the second round, this will be the biggest shock recorded in Romania's post-Communist elections and the first time that the Social-Democrats are left without a candidate in the final.

Even with the PSD leader narrowly qualifying in second place, the results are a total shock for the political establishment in Bucharest, as nobody predicted such a high score for an independent candidate who was almost absent from mainstream media during the campaign. Instead, Calin Georgescu’s campaign focused almost exclusively on social media channels such as Facebook and TikTok, where he gained a lot of traction.

The exit polls showed PM Marcel Ciolacu comfortably in the lead, with 25%, and Elena Lasconi second, with 18%, followed by Calin Georgescu with 16%.

Meanwhile, the polls carried out since the beginning of November didn't even point to Georgescu as a potential contender for the second round, as his score was estimated at about 5%. Meanwhile, everyone expected a three-way battle for the second place between AUR leader George Simion, PNL's Nicolae Ciuca and USR's Elena Lasconi.

The results also show that Romanian voters are profoundly unhappy with the governing parties - PSD and PNL - whose candidates took just about 30% of the votes. Meanwhile, the nationalist current, represented by AUR's George Simion and independent Calin Georgescu, has reached a score of 36%.

This leaves the parliamentary elections scheduled for next Sunday, December 1 (Romania's National Day), open to a surprise result as well, depending on who Georgescu's voters decide to support. He is not currently affiliated with any political party, although he was AUR's proposal for the prime minister seat after the 2020 elections.

editor@romania-insider.com