BUCHAREST, Romania, May 19, (AP): Pro-European Union candidate Nicusor Dan on Sunday won Romania’s closely watched presidential runoff against a hard-right nationalist who modeled his campaign after US President Donald Trump. The victory marked a major turnaround in a tense election that many viewed as a geopolitical choice for the former Eastern Bloc country between East or West.

The race pitted front-runner George Simion, the 38-year-old leader of the hard-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, or AUR, against Dan, the incumbent mayor of Bucharest. It was held months after the cancelation of the previous election plunged Romania into its worst political crisis in decades. With more than 99% of polling stations reporting, Dan was ahead with 53.9%, while Simion trailed at 46.1%, according to official data.

In the first-round vote on May 4, Simion won almost twice as many votes as Dan, and many local surveys predicted he would secure the presidency. But in a swing that appeared to be a repudiation of Simion’s skeptical approach to the EU, which Romania joined in 2007, Dan picked up almost 900,000 more votes to solidly defeat his opponent in the final round.

On Sunday evening, thousands gathered outside Dan’s headquarters near Bucharest City Hall to await the final results, chanting "Nicusor!” Each time his lead widened as more results came in, the crowd, many waving the flags of Europe, would erupt in cheers. Once it was clear he had secured a victory, Dan gave an emotional speech from an outdoor stage where he thanked his supporters, and reached out to Simion’s backers with a message of national unity.

"What you have done as a society in these past weeks has been extraordinary,” he said. "Our full respect for those who had a different choice today, and for those who made a different choice in the first round. We have a Romania to build together, regardless of political choices.” Final electoral data showed a 64% voter turnout - a sharp increase from the first round on May 4 where 53% of eligible voters cast a ballot. About 1.64 million Romanians abroad participated in the vote, some 660,000 more than in the first round.