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, in which the former was victorious. Dan's term as the sixth president of Romania began on 26 May.

The election was scheduled in January 2025 following the annulment of the 2024 Romanian 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 Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) leader 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, and Dan's presidency began on 26 May.

Background

Previous election annulled

On 6 December 2024, the 2024 Romanian 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 that the campaign was altered illegally to favour Georgescu but did not blame the company they worked with for the alteration.

Second Ciolacu cabinet

After the 2024 Romanian parliamentary election, the second Ciolacu cabinet was formed as a minority coalition between PSD, PNL, and UDMR, 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. 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 (Alianța Electorală România Înainte; 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

Nicușor Dan vs George 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.