Partial results from Romania's local, mayoral, and European elections showed Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu's ruling Social Democrats (PSD) and their junior coalition partner, the Liberal Party (PNL), leading all groupings but unprecedented success for a 4-year-old party on the far right.
Vote counts were continuing on June 11 after technical delays affected more than half of Romania's counties in the June 9 elections seen as a bellwether for a presidential election in September and parliamentary voting scheduled for December.
But the early returns showed the senior ruling PSD and PNL on top and the extreme nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians' (AUR) third-place finish suggesting the populist party continues to make inroads since its first test at the ballot box in 2020.
In partial returns from the local voting, the PSD was leading with nearly 39 percent, followed by the PNL with 30 percent and the AUR with nearly 9 percent. They were followed by the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), which is close to Hungary's ruling Fidesz party, with around 6 percent, and the pro-Western opposition gathered in the Alliance of the United Right (ADU), with less than 3 percent.
The partial tallies also suggested the PSD had won control of 25 of Romania's 41 county councils, five more than in 2020, and the PNL 12 versus 17 in voting four years ago.
The PSD looked poised to win control of nearly 1,500 of the 2,759 mayoralties being contested all over the country, and the PNL another 957. The AUR was shut out of any mayoral victories.
An independent incumbent, Nicusor Dan, looked set to win reelection as mayor of Bucharest.
His victory was arguably the only good news for the center-right coalition that supported him, the United Right Alliance (ADU). The ADU has battled both the PSD-PNL government and voter disappointment. It has yet to decide on its candidate for the presidency, and a failure to improve on its 2.77 percent showing would leave it short of the 3-percent threshold to reach parliament in December.
In voting for the European Parliament, where the PSD and PNL ran a joint campaign to fend off the AUR threat, their joint National Coalition for Romania list had 48.7 percent support and a predicted 19 seats.
The AUR was projected at nearly 15 percent and six seats in the European Parliament, below some predictions but the first time Romanian voters have sent representatives of the far right to Strasbourg.
The AUR and its leader, George Simion, have staked out strongly anti-Western positions rooted in the nationalist communism of the Ceausescu dictatorship, questioning Romania's membership in the European Union and NATO, alongside xenophobia and conspiratorial rabble-rousing.
Diana Sosoaca, the most openly pro-Russian politician in Romania, also won a seat in Strasbourg. She heads the S.O.S. Romania party, an irredentist faction of the AUR.
SEE ALSO: Surprise 'Gold' Rush Hurtles Right-Wing Party Into Thick Of Romanian PoliticsVote counts were suspended late on election night in more than half the country's 41 counties to allow a break for election workers after transport and other problems were reported in some districts.
The authorities declined to identify the affected counties, but sources confirmed to RFE/RL's Romanian Service that they included a downtown district of the capital, Bucharest, as well as Constanta, Cluj, and Brasov.
The tallying was confirmed to have resumed in at least three of those counties early on June 11.