Eurosceptic George Simion will get a second shot at becoming Romania's president on May 4, hoping to ride a wave of anger stirred by the cancellation of a December election that another far-right contender looked set to win.
NATO and European Union member Romania looked poised to swing towards Russia after far-right newcomer Calin Georgescu topped the first round of voting last November, but the country's top court cancelled the election because of suspicions of Russian meddling. Moscow denied the allegations.
"I believe that just as MAGA won power in the United States, so too the Make Europe Great Again movement will have a majority in European institutions," Simion, 38, said during a recent conference.
"I do not doubt that anywhere in the free world the wind is that of change and of returning to common sense. The 'woke' madness has gone too far."
Simion was fourth in the first round of November's presidential election and called the subsequent cancellation a coup, petitioned courts and staged protests.
He is now under criminal investigation on suspicion of inciting violence after saying the election authorities who banned Georgescu should be skinned, a statement he later said he did not mean.
As Georgescu's replacement, he leads pre-election opinion polls with up to around 35% support.
"Simion represents total opposition to the political, social, institutional, economic system dominated by mainstream parties," said Sergiu Miscoiu, a political science professor at Babes-Bolyai University.
"His election will send a very bad signal about the direction Eastern Europe is headed to. It will be good news for Russia, in that it destabilises the region by adding one more division on the eastern flank."
UKRAINE STANCE
If elected, Simion has said he will make public "how much we contributed to the war effort in Ukraine to the detriment of subsidies for Romanian children and pensions for our elderly."
Romania has donated a Patriot air defence battery to Kyiv, is training Ukrainian fighter pilots and has enabled the export of about 30 million tons of Ukrainian grain through its Black Sea port of Constanta during the war.
The president is in charge of Romania's defence council which decides on military aid and has oversight over foreign policy, with the power to veto EU votes that require unanimity among member states.
Simion has called Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal but his party, the Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR), voted against a law enabling Romania to shoot down drones breaching its air space. Russian drone fragments have frequently fallen on Romanian territory during the war in Ukraine.
Simion has also said Romania should buy back the controlling stake in oil and gas group OMV Petrom (ROSNP.BX) from Austria's OMV (OMVV.VI). Petrom and state gas producer Romgaz are working on an offshore gas project in the Black Sea which will double Romania's output and make it a net exporter although the EU is weaning itself off Russian gas.
The six-year-old AUR has grown from a fringe anti-vaccination group during the COVID pandemic to be the leading opposition force. It appeals to the working-class diaspora and young voters, and has built on popular anger with mainstream politicians.
If elected, Simion is likely to usher in a new parliamentary majority centered around his party and has suggested he could appoint Georgescu as prime minister.
He has supported restoring Romania's pre-World War Two borders, which include areas now in Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine, leading him to be declared persona non grata in the latter two countries.
Simion has degrees in business administration and history, and belonged to a soccer ultra group before entering politics.
