Hello and welcome to NewsHour.
It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London.
I'm Tim Franks.
In southeastern Europe today,
there's been a contest which goes to the heart of so much of politics these days,
at least politics in the West.
The Romanian presidential election runoff has pitted a hard-right nationalist candidate,
a self-declared fan of Donald Trump and foe of the multinational European Union,
against an avowedly pro.
EU Liberal candidate.
And despite the hard-right Georges Simeon having been the leading candidate out of the first round of voting two weeks ago,
with almost all the votes counted in today's vote,
it looks as if the centrist mayor of Bucharest, Nikosha Dan, has polled far ahead.
The counting suggests there's... a healthy seven-point gap between the two men.
Although, I should say,
the candidate who most emphatically did declare victory at the close of polling and the release of the exit polls was Mr Simeon.
That's Mr Simeon saying good evening.
I am the new Romanian president.
We'll hope to catch up with that.
correspondent in Bucharest, Sarah Rainsford, very shortly.