That's a really naive and wrong take.

He is popular, he was elected mayor of Bucharest.

He led a lot of anti corruption efforts for a very long time. (founded USB/USR)

He is smart (as you noted by olympiad, speaking multiple foreign languages)

He is religious as well (pretty important aparently)

All his opponents were much less competent.

A PSD candidate will never be president in a two term election unless the counter candidate is worse (because of iliescu and corruptiob)

The AUR candidate really is a russian puppet and not that smart either, he's mostly there for the 30% vote extremists always get and which were taken by georgescu first time. It's a shame he got far and shows how much influence external actors can have over facebook/tiktok etc.

The USR candidate that managed to squeeze through first time has no charisma and was a backup since Nicusor refused the first time...

So what else is left?

[dead]