Don't be fooled by Sunday's triple election: Europe's far right is stronger than ever, Politico notes.
Centrists breathed a sigh of relief Sunday as their candidates beat their right-wing rivals by three votes across Europe.
In Romania, centrist Nikusor Dan beat far-right Gheorghe Simion in the second round of the presidential election. In Poland, liberal Rafal Trzaskowski beat his rival Karol Nawrocki, backed by the Law and Justice party, to win the most votes in the first round of the presidential election. In Portugal's early elections, the far-right Stiga! party faced off against centrist parties, but none of them won a majority.
Observers in Brussels breathed a sigh of relief and were reassured that the rise of hard-right and eurosceptic candidates could not gain ground in countries that are core EU members and key NATO allies. But despite the centrist victories, Sunday's election can hardly be considered a defeat for the right, the publication notes.
Romania
Support for ultra-nationalist politicians in Romania has grown rapidly.
High voter turnout helped save the moderate Nikusor Dan, whom a majority of Romanians elected as president on Sunday night. The pro-European independent presidential candidate and current mayor of Bucharest, who campaigned for reforms, defeated Gheorghe Simion of the right-wing nationalist Alliance for the Unification of Romanians in a runoff.
Romania is a cornerstone of both the EU and the NATO defense alliance. But the rise of Simion, a self-proclaimed Trumpist who supports cutting military aid to Ukraine, has fueled fears that the country of 19 million could be destabilized if he is elected president - although he has sought to allay those concerns.
But on Monday, Simion said he intended to file a petition with the Constitutional Court to annul the election due to "foreign interference." That claim may not be entirely unfounded, as the founder of the messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, said he had rejected a request from Nicolas Lerner, the head of France's foreign intelligence service (DGSE), to ban Romanian conservative voices from his platform ahead of Romania's election, Reuters reported.
The odds seemed to be against Dan, who had to make up ground after Simion won a comfortable first-round victory. Simion had declared himself the successor to ultranationalist Calin Georgescu, whose shock victory in November led to the annulment of the election amid allegations of Russian interference.
On Sunday, Dan defeated Simion by a 7-point margin. On Monday, he reiterated that Romania "will continue to be a faithful ally" NATO and will "focus on defense investment to strengthen the transatlantic bond".
But in a tight race, it was the big increase in turnout in the second round that helped Dan win. While the first round saw 53% turnout, Sunday's second round saw nearly 65%, the highest since 1996.
This trend was also clear in voting outside Romania, where Simion won 61% in the first round. But as the number of diaspora voters exploded from just under 1 million in the first round to 1.6 million in the second, his support among them fell to 56 percent, "Politico" notes.
In Moldova, where a large majority backed Dan over Simion, voter turnout jumped from 90,500 to more than 157,000. In countries such as Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, Simion's vote share has declined, although he is still winning there.
Dan himself credited his victory to "unprecedented mobilization," thanking "every Romanian who came to vote, fighting for what they believe in," in a video message on Sunday night.
Back home, Dan's support has also increased, with the particularly clear support of the Hungarian minority. Voters from this group switched their support from the establishment candidate, Crin Antonescu, in the first round to Dan in the second round.
Despite Dan's victory, there has been a rapid increase in support for Simion and Georgescu. In the first round of elections late last year, the results of which were annulled, Georgescu's victory surprised the country. In the first round of the run-off vote earlier this month, Simion fared better than both Georgescu and his own November result combined.
The electoral map for Sunday's second round showed how Dan and Simion were locked in a tight race across large parts of the country.
Poland
In Poland, the liberal mayor of Warsaw, Rafal Trzaszkowski, won the first round of the presidential election by a narrower margin than expected. Despite predictions of a 5 percent lead, he was only 2 percent ahead of his right-wing rival, Karol Nawrocki, who performed surprisingly well.
The results of the vote put Prime Minister Donald Tusk at risk. His leadership has been undermined by President Andrzej Duda, who is an ally of the populist right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party.
On Sunday, Trzaszkowski, a member of Tusk's Civic Platform party, won 31.4 percent of the vote, while Nawrocki, who is supported by PiS, won 29.5 percent.
However, Sławomir Menzen, the candidate of the far-right Confederation, came in third with 14.8 percent. And Grzegorz Braun, a far-right anti-Semitic candidate, surprisingly came in fourth place with 6 percent.
Those votes will come back into play when Trzaszkowski and Nawrocki go to a runoff on June 1, when they will have to win over supporters of candidates who did not qualify for the second round, Politico notes.
On Sunday, Nawrocki appealed for support from Menzen and his voters, saying: "We both want a sovereign, strong, wealthy and secure Poland."
The electoral map from the first round of voting in Poland shows a divided country, with large parts of the west and larger cities supporting Trzaszkowski, while most of the east favors Nawrocki.
The official results from the first round were no surprise. As expected, Rafal Trzaskowski emerged as the frontrunner, with Karol Nawrocki advancing to the second round and Sławomir Menzen coming in third. But this is only a veneer of political stability. In fact, these elections signal tectonic shifts in Polish politics and should be a wake-up call for the current political class, writes "Żecpospolita".
Although the candidates for the run-off are known, the real winner of the first round is the country's rebellious youth, the newspaper writes. Anti-establishment candidates won over 27% of the vote. Young voters reject the two-party system. The Polish political scene is changing, the newspaper notes.
What is the real price of Rafal Trzaskowski's victory in the first round?
Having received 31.36% of the vote, Rafal Trzaskowski slightly improved his result from five years ago (by 0.8 percentage points) and the Civic Coalition's result from 2023 (by 0.6 percentage points). This is a solid result, but given the lead that the polls showed and the participation of the entire party, the prime minister, etc. in his campaign, it can hardly be considered a remarkable success. It is also difficult to consider the 1.8 percentage point lead over Karol Nawrocki a success in a situation where the candidate of “PiS“ became the hero of a real estate scam.
If we look at how the votes were distributed among the representatives of the parties that formed the coalition on October 15, Donald Tusk has reason to be concerned, as they currently have just over 40% of the votes. This is a worrying sign for the government, as the opposition candidate will obviously try to turn the second round into a vote of no confidence in the current government.
Neither Szymon Holownia (4.99%) nor Magdalena Bejat (4.23%) managed to convince voters that as members of the ruling coalition they will be able to effectively criticize the government's actions. As a result, the ability of the current coalition to maintain its majority in the next Sejm is in question. Due to the poor performance of the representatives of the “Third Way“ and “The Left“, frictions within the coalition can also be expected.
Anti-systemic forces are gaining popularity. This is evident from the results of Sławomir Menzen, Grzegorz Braun and Adrian Zandberg, notes "Żecpospolita".
The entire Polish political class should pay close attention to the results of candidates who are opponents of the system. If you add up the support of right-wingers Sławomir Menzen, Grzegorz Braun, Krzysztof Stanowski and left-winger Adrian Zandberg, you get over 27% of the vote, which calls into question the established political status quo. Moreover, almost 40% of voters voted for candidates who were not members of the two largest parties, which can be seen as evidence of fatigue from the ongoing 20-year division of Donald Tusk's Poland and Jarosław Kaczyński's Poland.
The biggest political divide today is not along the urban-rural line, nor along the level of education. Political differences are strongest among different age groups. In the over-60s, Rafal Trzaskowski and Karol Nawrocki together received almost 90 percent of the vote. In the 18-29 age group, the candidates from the two largest parties received only 22 percent. Three-quarters of young people do not find a place for themselves in the current political division between Tusk's Poland and Kaczynski's Poland, the newspaper writes.
Portugal
In Portugal, the center-right Democratic Alliance won the most votes in early elections on Sunday, the Associated Press reported.
But the big winner was the far-right "Enough!" party , which tied with the Socialist Party as the second-largest party in the country's parliament.
"Enough!" has capitalized on popular anger directed at Portugal's main parties. Its performance on Sunday confirmed a seemingly unstoppable growth in support for it in Portugal, where it went from having just one MP in 2019 to becoming the third-largest party in last year's elections – and now controls a quarter of the seats in the country's legislature.
It currently has 58 seats in parliament, but could increase its lead once the counting of votes from overseas voters is complete, notes "Politico".
The party's strong showing in southern Portugal - an agricultural region that in the decades since the Carnation Revolution largely supported the Communist Party - has many worried ahead of local elections this fall.
"Enough!" is likely to gain control of municipal governments in key cities across the country, cementing the far-right's presence in Portugal.