section_path: 2024 and 2025 presidential elections/2024
section_name: 2024
paragraph_text: 2024
  
  Simion stood in the 2024 Romanian presidential election, finishing fourth in the first round on 24 November with 13.9 per cent, behind independent candidate Călin Georgescu, USR candidate Elena Lasconi and Social Democratic prime minister Marcel Ciolacu. Georgescu, who Simion had endorsed for prime minister in 2020 and 2021, achieved a surprise victory in the first round with 22.9 per cent of the vote against USR candidate Elena Lasconi, with Simion announcing his endorsement of Georgescu for the second round on 8 December. However, two days before then, the Romanian Constitutional Court annulled the election results due to accusations of Russian interference. Simion criticised the ruling, framing it as a coup d'état orchestrated by the Romanian political elite.