Thousands of jubilant people gathered on Queen Elizabeth Boulevard in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, on Sunday evening to celebrate.

Waving Romanian and EU flags, they repeatedly chanted the first name of the man who had just won the presidential election: "Nicusor! Nicusor!"

The man in question, Nicusor Dan, appeared on a balcony, waving an EU flag and greeting supporters below. Finally, at half past midnight, he appeared outside the door of the building to thunderous applause.

In his usual uncharismatic, unpretentious yet approachable manner, the president-elect thanked his supporters. He then turned his attention to those who had not voted for him, saying: "I invite you to help build Romania together."

There was nothing triumphalist about Dan's brief address: "Let us continue to believe in Romania," he concluded, "and get to work tomorrow!"

Nicusor Dan is a mathematician and former civic activist who became mayor of Bucharest and then ran for the presidency as an independent candidate.

His win is unexpected, with the 55-year-old coming from far behind in the polls to win the second round of the election, catching up in a way no electoral candidate in Romania has ever done before.

After the first round of the election two weeks ago, Dan was a whole 20% behind his opponent, the right-wing extremist George Simion, in Sunday's runoff.

But Dan obviously won over several million voters in the intervening period, winning the second round with about 54% of the vote to Simion's 46%.

This is good news for Romania, the European Union and, in particular, Ukraine.

Simion, a former........

© Deutsche Welle