Newscenter Media News BUCHAREST — Nicușor Dan takes his time when he speaks, weighing every word as if the future of civilization might depend on it. But then he may just be the West’s best hope of holding onto Romania.
The 55-year-old corruption-fighting mayor of Bucharest is standing to be president of the European Union’s sixth most populous country, a contest that has already triggered a constitutional crisis — and howls of outrage from leading figures in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Last December’s presidential election in Romania was canceled amid claims that Russian interference, dubious financing and a highly suspect TikTok campaign had unfairly catapulted a little-known, Moscow-sympathizing, far-right outsider — Călin Georgescu — into first place.
Yet despite the claims of interference, Georgescu remained popular, according to pollsters, and was on track to success in the May rerun until the election authorities went one step further and banned him outright.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Trump’s outrider Elon Musk seized on Romania as a case study in the evils of European politics, denouncing the suppression of Georgescu as a travesty of democracy.
In an interview with POLITICO, Dan chooses not to punch back hard against the U.S. interventions, which he blames on ignorance. Vance and Musk, he says, simply don’t have enough information about what happened to be able to judge fairly — and that’s not all their fault.
They were swayed by Georgescu’s noisy media campaign protesting the decision to annul the election and ban him — in part because Romanian authorities have not set out enough evidence in public to explain what went wrong, Dan says.
“It doesn’t look good for the Romanian image and I think we have to clarify everything,” Dan says, when asked if the American criticism is damaging. “They are free to give their opinions. I think Romanian people are much more interested in what the candidates are saying on the future of Romania.”
Early polling suggests another far-right politician — George Simion — is poised to pick up most of Georgescu’s voters, and looks set to win the first round of the election rerun on May 4. Dan, according to one major poll this month, has a good chance of winning the presidency if he makes it to the second round on May 18, though the contest remains wide open.
At stake is the future direction of a country of 19 million people bordering Ukraine on the EU’s eastern edge, which is home to a critical NATO base, at a delicate moment for the Western alliance.
The impact on EU politics if Simion wins would be huge: a new Viktor Orbán-style disruptor in charge of a country twice the size of Hungary, swelling the influence of nationalism in European politics.
Simion describes his Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) as “sort of a Trumpist party” and has pledged to end military support for Ukraine. He has also campaigned for the unification of Moldova and Romania, and was banned from entering Moldova on several occasions.
The impact on EU politics if Simion wins would be huge: a new Viktor Orbán-style disruptor in charge of a country twice the size of Hungary. | Andrei Pungovschi/Getty Images
It’s not a unique story, with the far right on the rise in France, Germany, Austria and Italy, among other places. So why does Romania find itself next in line? Dan pauses again before offering his analysis.
“I think there is dissatisfaction in Romanian society, which for long has been dormant,” he says, speaking to POLITICO from his office in Bucharest, a city he has run since 2020. “We have a big mass of people that are realising and expressing that things can’t go the same way … there are people who are saying that any alternative is better than the current system.”
The professor
Dan is a gifted mathematician by training, twice achieving perfect scores in the prestigious International Mathematics Olympiad competition. A keen student of philosophy, with a thick mop of dark curly hair, he retains the slightly otherworldly air of his academic past.
It’s a sharp contrast with Georgescu, who appeared in TikTok videos on horseback wearing traditional dress, and boasted he didn’t need a party because his party was Romania.
Dan commits himself to supporting Ukraine against Russia and preserving Romania’s alliances in the West, including playing a full part in NATO and EU affairs. He sees America and Europe as naturally on the same side.
“The United States and Europe are part of the same model of civilization which is in contradiction with other models of civilization,” he says. “So we must be together in this conflict of civilizations.”
But he worries that Trump is giving Russian President Vladimir Putin an easy ride in pursuit of peace in Ukraine, and calls on the U.S. president to rebalance his approach to the talks.
“To try to have peace in Ukraine is very legitimate. Everybody wants it,” Dan says. “Looking at the United States administration’s response, we have seen big pressure on the Ukrainian side but we didn’t see similar pressure on the Russian side. If you are the United States administration, if you want to press the Russian side you can talk on financial penalties, you can talk on the price of oil and all these things, and I didn’t see that.”
“The way in which the war finishes in Ukraine is very important to Romanian and European future security … the pressure on the two sides was not balanced and I think Putin is in a better international situation than one month ago.”
‘A big fail’
Investigations are ongoing into what exactly happened during the first round of voting in Romania last year, which Dan describes as “a big fail” by the state institutions responsible for safeguarding democracy. He is frustrated that the authorities have still not given a full account of what happened, leaving room for conspiracies.
During the Cold War, under Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu’s regime, the country kept its distance from Moscow’s rule, remaining skeptical of the Soviet empire and at the same time maintaining links with the West. That history won’t be lost on Putin, and isn’t on Dan either.
During the Cold War, under Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu’s regime, the country kept its distance from Moscow’s rule. | Steve Burton/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
“In Romania we have strong memories of what Russia means,” Dan says. “I think the Russian regime and Mr Putin tried to destabilize the democratic system in Romania, also in the rest of this part of Europe. This is part of his hybrid war he is doing against Europe.”
Putin’s agents are alleged to have mounted a huge operation in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to sway last year’s presidential election in neighboring Moldova. If Russian election interference is confirmed in Romania, it will be a “good opportunity” to educate Romanians about the dangers of disinformation, and how malign actors can hijack social media to destabilize societies, Dan believes.
He characterizes Simion, the 38-year-old far-right AUR party leader, as favorable to Russia and a challenge to Romania’s pro-Western outlook. Dan’s other main rival, he says, is Crin Antonescu, a former president who he says represents the unpopular political establishment.
Dan made his name fighting corruption and restoring credibility to the administration of Romania’s capital city.
“To a certain extent I’m an anti-system politician,” he says. “I think people see in me a critic of the current political system and on the other hand an honesty that people don’t see in other politicians. In my opinion, the persona is more important than the program.”
He may be correct. But the appeal of the far right is still strong and voter cynicism is widespread.
Dan never really wanted to be a politician but ended up founding a party — the Save Romania Union — due to what he saw as a need for a new direction. But he doesn’t seem sentimental about politics, and left the party to become an independent candidate.
As well as having a capital city to run, he has other options if Romanian voters choose a different path in May.
“If I were to not do politics I would be a mathematician,” he says. “Many people do not understand that doing mathematics is very close to some kind of art, some kind of literature. It is discovering in yourself and constructing in yourself some kind of object. It is of course very rational but also discovering things is working a lot with your subconscious.”
“What will define me is a very big curiosity to know about myself, about the world, about my country.”