A pro-European local mayor has clearly won the Bucharest mayoral race on Sunday near final results show. The result is a boost for the government which is implementing unpopular austerity measures and facing widespread voter apathy.
Ciprian Ciucu, the Liberal Party mayor of Bucharest District 6, won about 35.85% of the vote with 97% of the vote counted. Turnout was just 33%, one of the lowest in recent decades.
“I want to make Bucharest the long-term project of my life,” he said after polls closed.
Ciucu won two consecutive mandates as mayor of District 6, and was re-elected with over 70% of the vote in the 2024 elections.
He is known as an in-touch reformer focusing on investments, administrative reorganization and urban regeneration.
After results began coming in, he said he had no ambitions beyond being Bucharest mayor, Two Bucharest mayors have been elected the country’s president, including current President Nicusor Dan, who became president in May.
“First of all, in this campaign, I want to give a message of unity to the parties in the government coalition, especially for the center-right ones, we will have a lot of work to do at the Bucharest City Hall, we will have many projects to pass,” Ciucu said after the polls were published.
In a surprise second place with 22.12% according to near-final results was television journalist Anca Alexandrescu who was supported by the anti-establishment and anti-Ukraine party, AUR which is polling first nationally. At least one pre-election poll had put her in pole position.
Alexandrescu gained notoriety in the past year over her support for Calin Georgescu, a Russia-friendly, NATO skeptic who was reportedly helped by Russian interference to improbably win the first round of Nov. 2024 presidential elections, which were then cancelled. Russia has denied meddling.
She campaigned on vague abstract terms such as “God” and “justice” but gained traction due to her notoriety and disillusion with mainstream parties.
Before she cast her ballot on Sunday, she said: „I have faith that God will not desert us.”
Daniel Baluta, the Social Democrat mayor of District 4, came third with about 20%.
Romania’s pro-European Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan on Sunday called on voters to vote “rationally and wisely” amid unease that the Romanian capital was poised to vote Alexandrescu, whose views are more aligned with Russia than the European Union.
“I urge Bucharest residents …. to make a rational vote, a wise vote,” the prime minister who is head of the center-right, pro-Western Liberal Party said.
Voter turnout was about 33.1%, lower than the previous election of 2024.
