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

Centrist candidate Ciprian Ciucu has been elected Bucharest's new mayor, winning around 36% of the vote and defeating hard-right contender, Anca Alexandrescu.

Ciucu is a member of the National Liberal Party and a close ally of Romania's Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan. His win could ease pressure on the fragile governing coalition to pass unpopular austerity measures.

"Beyond this victory, it’s probably a good thing that this coalition will continue. The government has promised reforms and it’s time to implement them," Ciucu said on Sunday.

Ciucu's main opponent, Anca Alexandrescu, a TV presenter backed by the hard-right Alliance for Romanian Unity (AUR) received 22% of the vote. The Social Democratic Party’s candidate Daniel Băluță came in third, despite being projected to win in many opinion polls.

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 populist 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, signalling that Romanians chose to continue their pro-Western course by turning out in record numbers to vote for the unassuming mayor of Bucharest and against the nationalist doctrines represented by Simion and his ally Calin Georgescu.

The influential post has led to the election of two former Bucharest mayors as president: Dan and Traian Băsescu in 2004.