May 18, 2025 UPDATE
A roundup of local and world news
Newsroom, 18.05.2025, 20:00
ELECTION Over 60% of Romania’s nearly 18 million registered voters had voted by 7:00 p.m. local time on Sunday in the second round of the presidential election. A record number of voters has also been reported abroad, over 1.5 million, which is unprecedented in Romania’s post-communist years. The largest number of Romanian nationals voted in Italy, Germany, the UK, Spain, the Republic of Moldova, France, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands. Romanians elect their president for the next 5 years from the 2 candidates who have reached the final round: the hard-right populist leader of AUR, George Simion, and the centrist independent Nicusor Dan, the current mayor of Bucharest. On May 4, in the first round, Simion got 41% of the votes, and Dan 21%. There are almost 19,000 polling stations throughout the country, while Romanians abroad vote in 965 stations. As in the previous round, Romanian voters residing abroad had three days – Friday, Saturday and Sunday – to exercise their right to vote. According to the Permanent Electoral Authority, 87 accredited foreign journalists and 159 international observers have monitored the election.
BALLOTS Poland also hosted presidential elections on Sunday, which might decide whether Donald Tusk’s coalition government will be able to push liberal reforms further, the BBC reports. The conservative president Andrzej Duda, whose term in office is drawing to a close, has repeatedly used his veto rights to block bills from the coalition, which lacks a parliamentary majority. The main presidential candidates were Rafal Trzaskowski, representing the ruling Civic Platform party, the historian Karol Nawrocki, who is backed by the Law and Justice Party (PiS) and is the head of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, and the far-right candidate Slawomir Mentzen. Portugal, meanwhile, held its 3rd round of general elections in 3 years. The snap elections were organised after the government was dismissed under a no-confidence motion, initiated amid a controversy surrounding Prime Minister Luís Montenegro’s family business. Polls show his coalition would win with 34% of the votes, as against the 26% expected for the Socialists.
POPE LEO Pope Leo XIV, who Sunday performed his inauguration mass, pledged to uphold the teachings of the Catholic Church while also urging it to face today’s challenges head-on, Reuters reports. In front of thousands of believers gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo emphasised the need for the 1.4 billion Catholics to stay true to the tradition of the Church, but not to become isolated. Reflecting the priorities of his predecessor, Pope Francis, Leo criticised the global economic system, which, according to him, “exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalises the poorest.” Thousands of Catholic believers and 150 delegations from around the world attended the enthronement service of Pope Leo XIV, elected 10 days ago at the conclave of cardinals, after the death of Pope Francis. The ceremony was attended, among other officials, by the US vice president James David Vance, and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Romania was represented by the Senate speaker Mircea Abrudean.
FOOTBALL FCSB (Bucharest) alongside over 50,000 fans Saturday night celebrated their second consecutive champion title, after winning against Universitatea Craiova 1-0, in the last-but-one round of the Romanian Super League. The Bucharest-based team secured their champion title in the previous round. FCSB, which has not lost a championship match since last fall, also had a successful European season, reaching the Europa League’s round of 16. FCSB will play in the Romanian Super Cup against CFR Cluj, which won the club’s 5th cup this week with a victory against FC Hermannstadt.
EUROVISION Austria won the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest in the Swiss city of Basel on Sunday, in the country’s first victory since the cross-dressing artist Conchita Wurst won in 2014, Reuters reports. JJ, the stage name of Johannes Pietsch, a 24-year-old Austrian-Filipino countertenor from Vienna, combined operatic elements, techno and soprano trills in his song “Wasted Love”, delighting both the professional jury and telephone voters. JJ beat Israel’s representative, Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the October 7 attacks, who performed the song “New Day Will Rise”. Eurovision, which has asserted its political neutrality, has again faced controversy this year in the context of the war in Gaza. (AMP)
