Nicusor Dan, who ran as an independent candidate but was supported by Justice and Respect for All in Europe (DREPT), the People's Movement Party (PMP), the Right Force (FD) and Renew the European Project in Romania (REPER), won the second round of the presidential election on 18 May in Romania with 53.60% of the vote. He beat his rival, George Simion (Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, AUR), who won 46.40% of the vote. 

Mayor of Bucharest since 2020, Nicusor Dan made an incredible comeback of 30 points between the two rounds, benefiting from an extraordinary mobilisation of Romanians frightened by the arrival of a representative of the far right in power, while his opponent benefited only from a small number of transferred votes.

Turnout was high, standing at 64.72%, up 11.53 points on the first round on 4 May. Romanians living outside Romania turned out in force, with 1.64 million fulfilling their civic duty on 18 May, an increase of 660,000 on the first round. This turnout played a crucial role in Nicusor Dan's victory.

The presidential election on 4 and 18 May followed the Constitutional Court's decision on 6 December 2024 to invalidate the presidential election held on 24 November and 8 December. The Court had expressed its suspicions of Russian interference in the election campaign (85,000 cyberattacks were detected, launched from around 30 countries) and revealed the existence of an unprecedented digital communication strategy orchestrated via social media, particularly through TikTok (25,000 accounts on the network linked to the election campaign of Calin Georgescu, who had come out on ahead in the first round of voting on 24 November, had become very active in the two weeks leading up to the election). On 9 March, the Constitutional Court banned Calin Georgescu from standing in the presidential election.

Results of the presidential elections in Romania on 4 and 18 May 2025
Turnout : 53.19% (1st round) and 64.72% (2nd round)

Source : https://prezenta.roaep.ro/prezidentiale18052025/pv/results?region=total&pv-scope=total&pv-relativemax=max&pv-candidate-chart-type=bar 

Nicusor Dan decided to run for president following the ‘shock’ of the 24 November 2024 election. Although he is a reformer and pro-European, the mayor of Bucharest denounces corruption among Romania's political class. His campaign slogan is ‘Honest Romania’. He has presented himself as a man of change and institutional reform. He has campaigned on the need to rebuild Romania's democratic and civic foundations. He has also stated that he wants to ‘keep Romania on a western course, with its eyes turned towards the West’.

The new president of the Republic takes the helm of a Romania amid a political crisis. Many Romanians feel abandoned by the authorities in power. They are tired of the corruption that reigns in their country. ‘More than 40% of the population lives in rural areas. The poorest county has a standard of living six times lower than in Bucharest. Even though the average salary rose by more than 6% last year, taking inflation into account, the poorest have been hit hard by the sharp rise in food and energy prices,’ says Ciprian Dascalu, an economist at the Romanian Commercial Bank (BCR), who speaks of “abandonment and downgrading”. 
Cristian Preda, professor of political science at the University of Bucharest, believes that Romania is suffering from ‘a kind of ossification of political life’. He denounces political patronage and the stranglehold on national resources by the two main political parties – the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL) – which, either alternately or together, have governed the country since the fall of the communist regime in 1989.

In the aftermath of the first round, Prime Minister Ion-Marcel Ciolacu (PSD), who has led Romania since June 2023, resigned from office. This move came after the failure of the candidate of the Romania Forward (A.Ro) coalition, formed by the three governing parties – the National Liberal Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) – Crin Antonescu, to qualify for the second round of the presidential election. On 6 May, Catalin Predoiu (PNL) was appointed interim Prime Minister by the interim Head of State, Ilie Bolojan. His term of office cannot exceed 45 days.

Aged 55 and originally from Fagaras, a town in the centre of the country, Nicusor Dan is a mathematician who studied at the University of Bucharest, the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and the University of Paris XI. In 2015, he founded the Save Bucharest Union (USB), which became the Save Romania Union (USR). In 2016, Nicusor Dan was elected Member of Parliament. In 2020, after two unsuccessful attempts, he was elected Mayor of Bucharest. He was re-elected to this position in 2024. 
Nicusor Dan thus succeeds Klaus Iohannis at the Cotroceni Palace, the official residence of the Presidents of the Republic of Romania.