Romanian PM Ciolacu and Independet Candidate Georgescu Advance to Second Round
Prime minister Marcel Ciolacu, leader of the PSD (Social Democracy Party) party and presidential candidate delivers his speech at the PSD campaign headquarters after the first exit-poll, in Bucharest, Romania, t of votes. Photo: EFE/EPA/BOGDAN CRISTEL
November 24, 2024 Hour: 6:15 pm
Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu and independent candidate Calin Georgescu were the two top-ranked candidates in the first round of Romania’s presidential elections on Sunday, according to a partial vote count.
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After the counting of 86% of the votes, Georgescu and Ciolacu are vying for first place in what appears to be a technical tie with a difference of hundreds before moving on to the second round of elections.
Georgescu is scoring 22%, with 1,520,182 million votes leads the presidential race as Social Democrat Ciolacu runs second with 1,504,655, votes or 21.7%.
Meanwhile, the Centre-Right candidate Elena Lasconi is running third with 15% of the votes and far-righter George Simion reached more than one million votes.
Pre-election polls predicted Georgescu to receive just 5% of the vote, and the website Transtelex.ro claims that the candidate considered pro-Russian and radical, who was an ally of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) Achieved popularity on social media, such as TikTok.
The two candidates that polls put as possible second, the far-right George Simion and the liberal-conservative Elena Lasconi, both achieved 15%.
Turnout on the first day of the elections was 52.5%, slightly higher than in previous elections held in 2019 and almost 9.5 million of the 18 million Romanians with voting rights went to the polls this Sunday.
Autor: ACJ
Fuente: HotNews // EFE // Romania Insider // X: @PollsPilot