Liberal Ciprian Ciucu defeats hard-right candidate to become mayor of Bucharest

Liberal politician Ciprian Ciucu has been elected Romanian capital Bucharest's new mayor, winning 36.16% of the vote and defeating hard-right contender Anca Alexandrescu.

Ciucu, a member of the National Liberal Party and a close ally of Romania's Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, said after the victory that he did not expect an easy time in the office.

"Probably the biggest challenge this year will be drawing up the budget. At this year-end, depending on when the Government adopts the budget law, we mayors then have 45 days to draw up the budget for the city hall and local or general council as the case may be," he said on Monday.

"So, a rather difficult period will follow because, as we well know, there are financial problems at the Bucharest City Hall level."

Ciucu, a pro-Western candidate, defeated Alexandrescu, who was backed by the hard-right Alliance for Romanian Unity (AUR) and won 22% of the vote, while the Social Democratic Party’s pick Daniel Băluță came in third, and Save Romania Union candidate (USR) Cătălin Drulă ended up fourth in a close race between the four.

The election came after the position was left vacant by former Mayor Nicușor Dan's presidential election win in May.

Dan's election followed a political crisis that resulted in the withdrawal of the controversial nationalist frontrunner Călin Georgescu.

Georgescu upended Romania's political landscape last November when he ran as an independent and unexpectedly surged to frontrunner in the first round of the presidential election, going from an obscure candidate to beating the incumbent prime minister.

The election was annulled by the Constitutional Court after allegations emerged of Russian meddling to promote Georgescu, and he was subsequently barred from the election rerun.

Dan defeated AUR candidate George Simion in the rerun. The influential post of Bucharest mayor has led to the election of two former city heads as president: Dan and Traian Băsescu in 2004.