Hungarians and Roma secured Dan's election

As the "Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung für Rumänien" (ADZ) writes, Dan received up to 90 per cent of the vote in the predominantly Hungarian-populated districts in Szeklerland in north-eastern Transylvania and in the west around Koloszvár/Klausenburg /Cluj. The Hungarian minority in Romania has a good one million members, which is about six per cent of the population. The Roma minority in Romania, which is also recognised by the state, is estimated to have around half a million members. The Austrian blog "[dROMa](https://" writes of an "unprecedented mobilisation in the Roma communities". It refers to an analysis by the "Roma for Democracy" initiative, which is part of the "Roma for Europe" foundation. Their analysis revealed a historically high voter turnout in municipalities in which the Roma ethnic group is more strongly represented. According to the foundation's analysis, at least 15.9 per cent of the margin of victory for Nicușor Dan came from municipalities with a large Roma population. The new president was also ahead in the capital and in university towns. However, his rival won the majority of the 41 Romanian counties. Nevertheless, Nicușor-Daniel Dan ended up well ahead of his opponent with 55.16 per cent.

The election of the successor to Klaus Johannis, who, as a Transylvanian Saxon, is a member of one of several German minority groups in Romania, caused a stir in several respects. In the first round of the election scheduled for 24 November 2024, the far-right, EU-sceptic and Russia-friendly Călin Georgescu was surprisingly ahead of his liberal opponent Elena Lasconi. The Romanian Constitutional Court cancelled this ballot shortly afterwards. Georgescu is now under investigation for inciting offences against the constitutional order, making false statements regarding his campaign funding and his financial circumstances, founding an extreme right-wing network, glorifying war criminals and fascist ideas, as the ADZ writes. He was excluded from the new election. In the re-run of the first round of voting on 4 May, George Simion, who openly admitted that he wanted to continue Georgescu's policies, won a clear victory with 41% of the vote. Nicușor-Daniel Dan made it to the run-off with 21 per cent of the vote. He was therefore only just ahead of the candidate of the governing coalition, Crin Antonescu; the Hungarian umbrella organisation RMDSz is part of this coalition of national liberals and left-wing nationalist social democrats (the successor party to the Romanian Communist Party). This coalition only came about in the turmoil after the first round of elections in order to prevent a victory for the extreme right. As their candidate did not make it into the run-off, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu (Social Democrats) announced his resignation shortly after the first round of voting. The new president now faces the extremely difficult task of forming a stable government.