Bucharest mayor and presidential candidate Nicusor Dan predicts a "debate between a pro-Western direction for Romania and an anti-Western direction for Romania" in the runoff presidential election, after learning that he had qualified. The pro-EU candidate will face off Romania's far-right candidate George Simion who took a comfortable lead in the first round of presidential elections, near-final results for the rerun of last year's annulled ballot showed. The closely watched rerun could potentially herald a foreign policy shift in the EU country of 19 million, which has become a key pillar of NATO since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. With 99 percent of ballots counted, nationalist AUR party leader Simion -- a fan of US President Donald Trump -- was leading with 40.5 percent of the vote. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES