Table of Contents

Toggle

The right also won in Sunday’s elections across Europe  

Centrist wins in the triple election did not equal defeat of the right.

By HANNE COKELAERE
and AITOR HARNÁNDEZ-MORALES

^{Photos by Andre Dias Nobre/AFP via Getty Images}

Don’t be fooled by Sunday’s triple election: The hard right is stronger than ever.

Centrists breathed a sigh of relief on Sunday as their candidates beat right-wing rivals in three coinciding elections across Europe.

In Romania, the centrist Nicușor Dan exceeded expectations in beating far-right firebrand George Simion in a presidential election runoff. In Poland, liberal Rafał Trzaskowski squeezed past his Law and Justice-backed rival Karol Nawrocki to gain the most votes in the first round of the presidential election. And in Portugal’s snap election, far-right Chega surged against parties that held the center, though none won a majority.

Onlookers in Brussels relaxed on the fear that an upsurge in hard-right and Euroskeptic candidates might gain ground in countries that are core EU members and key NATO allies.

But despite the centrists’ wins, Sunday’s elections can hardly be considered a defeat for the right.

Romania

Support for ultranationalist politicians has grown rapidly in Romania.

High voter turnout helped save moderate Nicușor Dan, whom a majority of Romanians elected as the country’s president Sunday night. The nonaffiliated mayor of Bucharest, a pro-EU candidate who campaigned on reform, beat George Simion of the right-wing nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians in a runoff.

Romania is a cornerstone of both the EU and the NATO defense alliance. But the rise of Simion, a self-declared Trumpist who favors cutting military aid to Ukraine, had fueled fears that the country of 19 million could be destabilized if he were elected president — although he took pains to assuage those concerns.

The odds were stacked against Dan, who had to play catch-up after Simion scored a comfortable win in the first round. Simion cast himself as the successor of ultranationalist Călin Georgescu, whose shock victory in November led the election to be annulled over allegations of Russian interference.

On Sunday, Dan beat Simion by a 7-point margin.

Dan confirmed Monday that Romania would “continue to be a staunch Ally” to NATO and would “focus on defense investments to strengthen the transatlantic bond.”

But in the tight race, it was a major uptick in second-round participation that helped Dan to victory.

Where turnout stood at 53 percent in the first round, it ballooned to nearly 65 percent in Sunday’s runoff election — the highest since 1996.

That trend was also clear in voting outside of Romania, where Simion won 61 percent in the first round. But as diaspora voter numbers exploded from just fewer than 1 million in the first round to 1.6 million in the second, his support among them went down to 56 percent.

In Moldova, where a large majority backed Dan over Simion, voter numbers jumped from 90,500 to more than 157,000. In countries including Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, Simion’s vote share took a hit — although he still won there.

Dan himself credited the “unprecedented mobilization” for his win, in a video message Sunday night thanking “every Romanian who turned out to vote, made their voice heard and fought for what they believe in.”

At home, too, Dan grew his lead with particularly clear support from the Hungarian minority. Voters from that group shifted their backing from establishment candidate Crin Antonescu in the first round to Dan in the runoff.

Despite Dan’s victory, the rapid growth of support for Simion and Georgescu stands out. In the canceled first round, Georgescu’s victory took the country by surprise. In the first round of the redo earlier this month, Simion did better than Georgescu’s and his own November result combined.

The electoral map of Sunday’s runoff shows how Dan and Simion were locked in a tight race in large swathes of the country.

Poland

In Poland, the liberal Mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski won the first round of the presidential election with a smaller margin than expected. Though projected to have a 5 percentage point lead, he stayed just 2 percentage points ahead of his right-wing rival Karol Nawrocki, who performed surprisingly well.

It’s a high-stakes vote for Prime Minister Donald Tusk. His leadership has been undercut by President Andrzej Duda, who’s allied with the populist right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party.

On Sunday, Trzaskowski, a member of Tusk’s Civic Platform party, won 31.4 percent of the vote, while the PiS-backed Nawrocki received 29.5 percent.

Yet Sławomir Mentzen, the candidate of the far-right Confederation, placed third with 14.8 percent. And Grzegorz Braun, a far-right antisemitic candidate, won a surprise fourth spot with 6 percent.

These votes will come back into play as Trzaskowski and Nawrocki move to a runoff election on June 1, when they will have to win over supporters of candidates who didn’t place for the second round.

Nawrocki already appealed for the support of Mentzen and his voters on Sunday, saying: “We both want a sovereign, strong, rich and secure Poland.”

The electoral map of Poland’s first-round vote shows a divided country, with large swathes of the west and larger cities supporting Trzaskowski, while most of the east preferred Nawrocki.

Portugal

In Portugal, the center-right Democratic Alliance won the most votes in Sunday’s snap election.

But the night’s big winner was the far-right Chega party, which surged to tie with the Socialist Party as the second-largest force in the country’s parliament.

Chega has benefited from popular anger directed at Portugal’s mainstream parties. Its performance Sunday confirmed seemingly unstoppable growth in Portugal, where it has gone from just one lawmaker in 2019, to the third-largest party in last year’s election — now controlling a quarter of the seats in the country’s legislative body.

It currently has 58 parliamentary seats, but could increase its showing once votes from overseas electors finish being tallied.

Its huge wins in the south of Portugal, an agricultural region that overwhelmingly backed the Communist Party in the decades following the Carnation Revolution, have many concerned ahead of this fall’s nationwide local elections.

Chega is likely to gain control of municipal governments in key cities across the country, further consolidating the far right’s presence in Portugal. 

Carmen Paun and Wojciech Kość contributed to this report.