BUCHAREST — A Romanian hard-right NATO critic and leftist Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu appeared in dead heat after the first round of presidential elections on Sunday, partial tallies showed, in a shock result threatening Romania’s staunchly pro-Ukraine stance. 

After nearly 93% of votes were counted, Calin Georgescu, 62, was at 22%, while Ciolacu had 21%, suggesting they will likely qualify to face each other in the second round, due on Dec. 8. 

A center-right contender, Elena Lasconi, was running second, behind Georgescu, among the hundreds of thousands of voters living outside Romania, with about 50% ballots cast there counted. But that margin might not be enough to win her a spot in the final race after all votes are tallied, observers said. 

Romania’s president has a semi-executive role that gives him or her control over defense spending — likely to be a difficult issue as Bucharest comes under pressure to uphold NATO spending goals during Donald Trump’s second term as U.S. president while trying to reduce a heavy fiscal deficit. 

Some opinion polls had Georgescu running at around 5% of the vote in the run-up to the election, after barely registering in earlier polls. 

Political commentator Radu Magdin said the difference between his single-digit popularity and Sunday’s result was without precedent since Romania shed communism in 1989. 

“Never in our 34 years of democracy have we seen such a surge compared to surveys,” Magdin said. 

Campaigning focused largely on the soaring cost of living, with Romania having the EU’s biggest share of people at risk of poverty. 

Ciolacu had courted voters with a promise of generous spending and no tax hikes, despite Romania running the European Union’s largest budget deficit at 8% of economic outlook, while offering a sense of security in policy stability at a time of a war next door. 

Formerly a prominent member of the hard-right Alliance for Uniting Romanians party, Georgescu has called NATO’s ballistic missile defense shield in the Romanian town of Deveselu a “shame of diplomacy.” 

He has said the North Atlantic alliance will not protect any of its members should they be attacked by Russia. 

“We are strong and brave, many of us voted, even more will do so in the second round,” Georgescu said standing alone on Sunday evening outside a residential building near capital Bucharest. 

Lasconi, a former journalist, joined the Save Romania Union (USR) in 2018 and became party head this year. She believes in raising defense spending and helping Ukraine, and surveys suggest she would beat Ciolacu in a runoff. 

Romania shares a 650-kilometer (400-mile) border with Ukraine and since Russia attacked Kyiv in 2022, it has enabled the export of millions of tons of grain through its Black Sea port of Constanta and provided military aid, including the donation of a Patriot air defense battery. 

Villages on the border with Ukraine have seen a barrage of drones breaching national airspace although no casualties have been reported. 

One political commentator said Russian meddling to give Georgescu an edge could not be ruled out in the election. 

“Based on Georgescu’s stance towards Ukraine and the discrepancy between opinion surveys and the actual result, we cannot rule (that) out,” said Sergiu Miscoiu, a political science professor at Babes-Bolyai University. 

Outgoing two-term president Klaus Iohannis, 65, had cemented Romania’s strong pro-Western stance but was accused of not doing enough to fight corruption. 

“It will be a tight run-off, with the Social Democrat leader more vulnerable to negative campaigning due to him being an incumbent PM,” Magdin said.
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