Twenty percent of Romanians live outside the country – a total of 5 million people – and in the first round of the presidential election that concludes on Sunday, they voted overwhelmingly for far-right candidate George Simion, despite his Eurosceptic stance.
In the first round of the election on 4 May, the Romanian far right obtained even higher results outside its borders than it did within – Simion came first with more than 40 per cent of the vote in Romania, but took more than 60 per cent of the vote in the diaspora.
This was a repeat of the pattern seen during the cancelled presidential elections in Romania in 2024, the results of which were annulled by Romania’s highest court, citing allegations of Russian interference. This time, the phenomenon was even more marked.
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The diaspora vote is particularly favourable to the far right in the countries where Romanian expatriates are most numerous, namely in Western Europe.
Simion received more than 70 percent of the vote in Italy – home to the largest expat Romanian community, numbering more than 1 million – and in Germany and Spain.
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