Romania’s hard-right presidential frontrunner George Simion on Thursday said he would push for a broad coalition government if he is elected president on Sunday, potentially including his centrist opponent Nicușor Dan.

Romanian politics plunged into turmoil in a presidential election late last year when the two main establishment parties — the center-left Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the center-right National Liberal Party (PNL) — were eclipsed by the stunning rise of far-right ultranationalist Călin Georgescu, who won the first round.

Georgescu was later banned over undeclared election funding and allegations of Russian interference. The deciding round of a presidential election rerun will be held on May 18, with Simion expected to win, riding the wave of right-wing support Georgescu built up last year.

Although they are part of a parliamentary majority, the PSD and PNL again performed badly in the presidential rerun and have failed to make it to Sunday’s second round. Instead, Simion from the hard-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) will face off against Dan, the independent mayor of Bucharest, in the battle to become president.

“My option is to form a big union government to get rid of this crisis,” Simion said, adding such a coalition was needed to stabilize national politics, fight the country’s deficit and stave off a serious economic downturn.

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu from the PSD resigned after the dismal performance of his party in the first round of the presidential election rerun. Simion had predicted this, saying he could appoint Georgescu prime minister because the traditional parties had lost the credibility to hold a government together.

Simion’s AUR was founded in 2019 and has surged to become the second-biggest party in Romania’s parliament. At the European level, it is part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) party, alongside Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

The first task for whoever is elected on Sunday will be to gather enough support in the parliament to appoint a new prime minister.

Simion, who said he is sure he will win Sunday’s ballot by a “landslide,” argued he could include his presidential opponent Dan, whom he called “Macron’s guy,” in government negotiations too.

“I wouldn’t rule them out either because they are quite reformist,” Simion said, praising Dan’s anti-corruption platform and goals to reduce red-tape and spending on administration.

“We will have to stay at the dialogue table and we will see who of them wants to go to government,” Simion promised.

In a rapidly tightening race that looks like it is going down to the wire, POLITICO’s Poll of Polls puts Simion on 49 percent and Dan on 46 percent.

In truth, however, it is going to be far from easy for Simion to build up a coalition.

Three out of the country’s four main parties have already said loud and clear they will not join a coalition with Simion: the PNL, the centrist Save Romania Union, and the Hungarian minority party.

They deem Simion as too extreme and anti-European. They also criticize his hostile approach to Ukraine, as the hard-right candidate has said on multiple occasions he would oppose any further military aid to Ukraine.

“We cannot imagine any cooperation with either AUR or Simion, it would be a disaster for the Hungarians in Romania,” said Botond Csoma, spokesperson of the Hungarian minority party. He qualified Simion’s potential victory as “terrible” and the start of a “dark era.”

He could potentially find friends in the PSD, whose leadership announced after the first round of the election they would not endorse Dan against Simion in the runoff, leaving the door open to future collaboration with AUR.

Yet that would be no easy feat, either. The European Socialists’ umbrella party, of which the PSD is a member, is pressuring the Romanian party to avoid a coalition with Simion.

Socialists at the European level have spearheaded a campaign to keep far-right parties out of decision-making in Brussels.

Such an alliance in Romania would put their credibility at risk.

Csongor Körömi contributed to the reporting.