(18 May 2025)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bucharest – 18 May 2025
1. AUR party leader George Simion talking to media
2. Camera
3. Simion walking away from podium
4. SOUNDBITE (English) George Simion, AUR party leader, Romanian presidential candidate:
“If the elections are fair and free… I repeat, we have two members in each voting station, so there are witnesses there… if the result will be switched in any voting station, we will contest. If the result will not be switched, and we have fair and free elections there’s no point in contesting, I think, no?"
5. Wide of statement
6. Wide of palace of parliament
STORYLINE:
Far-right Romanian AUR party leader George Simion said in Bucharest on Sunday that he was confident of a "landslide victory" if the country’s election was "free and fair".
Simion’s rhetoric leading up to Sunday’s vote had led to concerns among some observers that he would not respect the result of the election if he lost.
On Sunday afternoon, Simion appeared on the steps of Romania’s Communist-era parliament building and told reporters his team was confident of a “landslide victory” if the election was “free and fair” — but repeated allegations of voting irregularities among Romanian citizens in neighbouring Moldova.
Members of his party would conduct a parallel vote count after polls close, he added.
Speaking to The Associated Press, Simion vowed to contest the election “if the result will be switched in any voting stations,” but added that he thought the ballot so far had proceeded properly.
Romanians were voting on Sunday in a tense presidential runoff between a hard-right nationalist and a pro-Western centrist in a high-stakes election rerun that could determine the geopolitical direction of the European Union and NATO member country.
The race pits front-runner Simion, the hard-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, or AUR, against incumbent Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan. It comes months after the cancelation of the previous election plunged Romania into its worst political crisis in decades.
Polls opened at 7 a.m. local time and were to close at 9 p.m.
By 3:00 p.m., more than 7.6 million people — or about 42% of eligible voters — had cast ballots, according to official electoral data.
AP video shot and produced by Nick Dumitrache
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