George Simion rejects the exit poll soon after it is released, says he is ahead in the presidential vote.
Centrist Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan, who has pledged to clamp down on corruption and staunchly supports both the European Union and NATO, has won the presidential election in Romania.
Nearly complete results of the vote showed Dan had more than 5.83 million votes with nearly 99 percent of total votes counted, giving him an insurmountable lead over hard-right nationalist rival George Simion, Reuters news agency has reported.
Earlier, exit polls indicated that Dan was ahead with 54.9 percent of Sunday’s votes, while Simion had 45.1 percent.
Simion rejected the exit poll soon after it was released, saying his count estimates have him at 400,000 votes more than Dan.
Dan had campaigned on a pledge to fight rampant corruption and keep Romania firmly within the European mainstream.
Turnout was significantly higher in Sunday’s run-off and was thought to have played a decisive role in the outcome.
The rerun of the election was held after the cancellation of November’s presidential vote plunged Romania into its worst political crisis in decades.
The country’s political landscape was thrown into turmoil when a top court annulled the previous election, in which far-right outsider Calin Georgescu topped the first-round polls after allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference, which Moscow denied.
Simion appeared alongside Georgescu at a Bucharest polling station on Sunday and told reporters that he voted against the “humiliations to which our sisters and brothers have been subjected”.
“We voted against abuses and against poverty,” he said. “I voted for our future to be decided only by Romanians, for Romanians and Romania. So help us, God!”
