By Thomas Grove

BUCHAREST -- Romania's decision last year to annul a vote won by a nationalist candidate over suspected Russian interference has drawn sharp criticism from the Trump administration.

Now, a new antiestablishment candidate is leading ahead of an election rerun Sunday, posing a challenge to the governing parties in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization member.

George Simion has cast himself as the successor to Calin Georgescu, the previous winner who has been barred from running. The 38-year-old Simion has praised President Trump and called for unification with neighboring Moldova. Both Ukraine and Moldova have barred Simion from visiting.

Simion's leading position in opinion polls is adding to fears in the West that Romania's response to alleged election interference by Russia has served only to further stoke instability in a country that hosts two NATO bases, thousands of U.S. troops and an American missile-defense shield.

Georgescu came out of nowhere to win the country's first-round presidential election in November. Romanian authorities overturned the result, saying Russia had likely orchestrated a TikTok campaign backing the candidate. They later barred Georgescu from running in the May 2025 elections, saying he didn't uphold the country's constitutional values.

The Kremlin has called accusations that it was behind the TikTok campaign "absolute stupidity" and said that any election without Georgescu is illegitimate.

Vice President JD Vance criticized the decision by Romania's election authorities in a February speech in Munich, in which he took aim at European countries for not upholding democratic values. "If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn't very strong to begin with," he said.

For years, Romania was regarded as a reliable NATO partner and a bulwark against populist parties that emerged in Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. But annulling the election results and barring Georgescu from running appears to have backfired on Romania's political establishment.

The moves outraged many Romanians, who saw them as an attempt by the government to keep a monopoly on power. With Georgescu out, many are now backing Simion.

"They avoided direct Russian influence but created a situation that the Russians are after, which is undermining faith in democratic institutions," said Jacques Rupnik, an expert on Central and Eastern Europe and professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.

To make matters worse, some politicians have accused the ruling Social Democratic Party of aiding Simion's rise. They say the party, which rules in a coalition, encouraged members to vote for him in last year's election, so that he might defeat other centrist candidates in the first round of voting. The Social Democratic candidate would then handily beat Simion in the final round. A spokesman for the prime minister declined to comment on the allegation.

"They created a kind of Frankenstein's monster," said Catalin Drula, a former transport minister who is now in the opposition. "Now they're paying for it."

Clean-cut and camera-friendly, Simion's raven-haired image now dominates campaign posters all over the former communist country. He has brought a theatrical flare to the campaign trail, sometimes appearing at rallies in folk costumes. To bolster his nationalist message, he has used stage actors to impersonate people from Romania's medieval past, including Vlad the Impaler, the historical figure who was the basis for the character Dracula.

He got his start in political activism advocating for the reunification of Romania and neighboring Moldova. The two were split by a pact between the Nazis and the Soviets in 1940.

"That pact still scars" Romania, Simion said in an email to The Wall Street Journal. "I demand dignity for Romanians beyond our borders."

He formed his party, the Alliance for the Union of Romania in 2019, and styled himself as an unabashed nationalist protesting Covid-19 restrictions and vaccination mandates .

"We had the courage to go out on the streets and not just stay on the internet. That made us visible," said Claudiu Tarziu, who co-founded the party but has since split from it.

The party won 9% support in elections in 2020, challenging the largely centrist parties that have dominated politics in Romania. Simion confronted members of the government verbally -- and, at times, physically. Days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he organized a rally intending to bring down the government that attracted several thousand people.

Moldova and Ukraine have never publicly explained why they have banned Simion. A former Moldovan defense minister, Anatol Shalaru, said his country has banned Simion from traveling there based on information from Ukraine that he met with intelligence agents from Russia's Federal Security Service in the southern Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi, close to the border with Romania.

Simion denies such meetings took place. "These rumors are part of a coordinated smear campaign meant to discredit my voice," he said.

Simion now employs a communications' director who used to work for Andrew Tate, the controversial social-media influencer who is under investigation for human trafficking in Romania. Tate denies wrongdoing.

At the height of the presidential campaign last month, Simion spent a week in the U.S., where his party was represented by U.S. consultants to help gain access to politicians and journalists, according to filings with the Justice Department. He has since given interviews to conservative commentators such as Steve Bannon and Jack Posobiec.

"In reality, he does not have any kind of close relationship with those around Trump," said Tarziu. "He imagines that Romanians will associate him with Trump's politics...which have quite a few supporters in Romania."

Georgescu is now under investigation for spreading false information and promoting fascism, which is illegal in Romania. Prosecutors have also alleged that he and one of his associates, Horatiu Potra, planned an armed insurrection against the government that was foiled by police.

Prosecutors say they have recordings and other evidence to support the claim. They say they found weapons and thousands of dollars and gold bullion in Potra's house. Potra, who runs a mercenary group in Africa, isn't in Romanian custody and couldn't be reached for comment. Georgescu has denied all allegations of wrongdoing.

Romania in April expelled two Russian diplomats, including the military attaché, over connections to Potra, said lawmaker Alexandru Muraru, head of a joint committee on foreign intelligence agencies in Romania.

"Russia had a great impact on Romanian society," said Muraru. "Their main goal is to divide us, to weaken us and to reduce our capacity as a state to protect its citizens."

Write to Thomas Grove at thomas.grove@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 03, 2025 21:00 ET (01:00 GMT)

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