According to opinion polls, the Social Democratic Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu and the far-right George Simion would take the top spots in Sunday's election. But both opinion figures and exit polls turned out to be completely wrong.
Instead, another far-right candidate, pro-Russian Professor Calin Georgescu, surged to the top with nearly 23 percent of the votes.
Behind him, liberal Elena Lasconi, the mayor of the small town of Campulung, came in second with 19.2 percent – just a few thousand votes more than the main favorite Ciolacu.
If the result is confirmed, it will be Lasconi and the strongly religious and EU- and NATO-critical Georgescu who will compete for the presidency in a second decisive round on December 8.
The 62-year-old Georgescu has, among other things, expressed his support for the 1930s and 1940s Romanian fascist movement, the Iron Guard, and wants to end Romania's military support to Ukraine.
This evening, the Romanian people have called for peace, he claimed on Sunday evening, according to the AFP news agency.
Romania is holding elections over three weeks, with the first round of the presidential election as the first step on November 24.
This will be followed by parliamentary elections on December 1 and a second decisive round in the presidential election on December 8.
Currently, Romania is governed by a broad coalition between the Social Democratic PSD and the conservative PNL.
The outgoing president is conservative Klaus Iohannis, who has sat for the maximum allowed two terms since 2014.
