Bucharest, Romania - When the Romanian voted on Sunday in one of the most important elections for EU members in decades, George Simion, a Magka-style hard-hitting nationalist, said it was his responsibility to restore democracy and the will of the people after the previous vote.

Romania's political landscape was overturned last year, when the top courts lapsed after the first vote of far-right outsider Calin Georgescu. The decision comes on charges of election violations and Russian campaigns that facilitated Georgescu, who is now under investigation and has been banned from a redo on Sunday. Moscow denied that it intervened.

“In 1989, we did not move from communism to democracy,” Simion, the 38-year-old leader of the Romanian Unified Nationalist Alliance, told the Associated Press. “The Romanian people live in the lie that we are a democratic country.”

Eleven candidates are vying for the presidency in Sunday's vote and are expected to compete for the president in a May 18 runoff. The presidency has five-year term and significant decision-making power in national security and foreign policy.

Romania has been a communist country until the end of the Cold War, and it has spent decades trying to build a strong democratic system. But last year's election defeat plunged EU and NATO member states into unprecedented political unrest.

"They voted for the change and would not allow it," Cion said, who said he was fourth in last year's competition and later supported Georgescu. “I am running for democracy again, towards the constitutional order, to restore the rule of law, to restore the will of the Romanian people.”

Although data from local surveys should be conducted with caution, the median poll suggests that Simion will enter runoff, possibly putting him in par with current Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan or candidate Crin Antonescu, a candidate for the Coalition of Councils.

Like other EU countries, votes on nationalists and far-rights have grown in Romania in recent years, driven by widespread anti-establishment sentiment.

Simion said his AUR party “is completely consistent with the Maga movement, which took advantage of the growing wave of populism in Europe following the political comeback of U.S. President Donald Trump. In the 2020 parliamentary elections, Aur claimed to represent “family, nation, faith and freedom” and doubled its support.

Dan, a 55-year-old mathematician and former anti-corruption activist, founded the Romanian Union Party (USR) in 2016, and is running with a pro-EU "Honest Romanian" ticket. Romania needs a president, he said, “who has the will and ability to reform the system.”

Antonescu, 65, has run for the pro-Western direction of Romania, and former Prime Minister Victor Ponta between 2012 and 2015 also promoted the Maga-style "Romania First" movement and boasted about close ties with the Trump administration.

Another promising Elena Lasconi was second in the first round of voting last year and ran again on Sunday. She positioned herself as a firm pro-Western, anti-system candidate against what she described as a corrupt political class.

"I will use every tool I have so that people can be heard in government, in parliament, in the judiciary," she told the Associated Press. "The institution has to serve the people. … We need to be intimate with Brussels."

However, after her USR party quits support for her in support of Dan, her chances are dim in the replay, claiming he has a better chance to win. Lasconi called his colleagues "coup planners." Her critics accused her of not preparing for the senior position.

Election redoing was a critical moment for Romania as it sought to restore democracy and preserve its geopolitical alliance, which has become tense since the canceled election fiasco.

U.S. Vice Presidents JD Vance, Elon Musk and Russia criticized the decision to abolish elections and ban Georgescu's candidates, which publicly support his candidacy in the replay.

The U.S. Embassy in Bucharest did not directly address Sunday's election, commenting on Facebook, attributed to Vance, who said: "Believing in democracy means recognizing that every citizen has a right to comment. We should also not be afraid of our people, even if they express disagreements with our leadership."

Distrust of the authorities remains widespread, especially for those who voted for George Cu, a large number of voters whose voting mock attempts to exploit.

However, the imitation chair will pose a unique foreign policy challenge. He was banned from entering two neighboring countries, Moldova and Ukraine, for concerns about security. "It is their interest to build a good relationship with us," he said.

His critics have long accused him of being pro-Russian, warning that his presidency would undermine Brussels and NATO as the war broke out in Ukraine. He refuted the allegations as a "smear campaign" and said Russia has been a "main threat" to Romania for the past 200 years and remains the case today.

"That's why we need strong NATO, we need troops on the ground in Romania, Poland and Baltic countries," Theo said on the EU. "We want to provide more power to 27 states rather than European institutions."

Opponents accused Simien's Orr party of being extremists. In 2022, the Israeli ambassador to Romania condemned Aur's opposition to the authorization to study the Romanian Holocaust, which later considered it a "small problem" and later softened his position.

Cristian Andrei, a Bucharest-based political adviser, said the same presidency “turned Romania upside down because he would use and weaponize this social and economic and political discontent,” could trigger “a crisis within all parties.”

“He will try to introduce and reshape public dialogue on issues concerning more conservative or populist issues… At some point, he will try to develop this skepticism about the EU and the West,” he said. “In the long run, “he may open the door to dialogue about the new alliance in the East.”

For Rares Ghiorghies, 36, who works in the energy sector, Simion's appeal is his "patriotic conservative vision" that puts family and faith first, while he hopes to get rid of the promises of Romania's political class "with corruption, powerlessness, and slavery control of all other partners."

"This change can only be achieved through a basic overhaul of the political class and its outdated principles," he said. Simon was a patriot and his "foreign policy vision is absolutely aimed at the United States rather than towards Russia."

Lidia Cremenescu, a 34-year-old shop owner in Bucharest, said she would vote for Dan and listed her main focus as Ukrainian war, economy and higher taxes and corruption.

"I think he can make a real change in this country," she said, adding that as mayor of Bucharest, Dan solved important projects that the mayor had overlooked before. "You can see the change. … You want someone who will be in power, just in case something goes wrong."