Bucharest mayor to run in Romanian presidential election

The independent two-term mayor of Romania's capital Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, said on Monday he will run for president in an election that will be re-run next year.

The European Union and NATO member state plunged into institutional chaos earlier this month when its top court annulled a presidential election following accusations of Russian interference and ordered that the vote be re-run.

The first round of that election saw far-right NATO critic Calin Georgescu emerge from relative obscurity to become the surprise frontrunner, in a massive protest by voters angered at mainstream parties mired in infighting and corruption allegations.

Dan, 54, won his second term as Bucharest mayor in June, having run as an independent.

A mathematician, he used to lead the opposition centrist Save Romania Union (USR), whose current leader Elena Lasconi was due to face Georgescu in the now cancelled presidential election second round.

"I will run as an independent," Dan told reporters. "I am open to talks with the pro-European parties for potential support."

He said he had informed the four parties now trying to form a coalition government of his plan to run.

Four pro-European parties agreed to form a governing majority after a Dec. 1 parliamentary election in which three ultranationalist and hard-right groupings, some with overt pro-Russian sympathies, won more than a third of the seats.

The parties, which are now clashing over fiscal measures needed to lower the EU’s highest budget deficit, had also initially considered endorsing a single candidate for a re-run of the country's annulled presidential election.