Few pollsters and analysts predicted even a week ago that Nicusor Dan, a quietly spoken mathematician and anti-corruption activist, had a serious chance of defeating far-right candidate George Simion in Romania's presidential election.
But Mr Dan has done just that, and in resounding fashion.
He won 54% of votes in yesterday's second round, with Mr Simion on 46%.
Mr Dan, the current mayor of Bucharest, had narrowly scraped into the second-round run-off two weeks ago to face Mr Simion, who had topped the first-round, with a resounding 41% of votes from a crowded field of eight candidates.
The second-round vote looked like it was within Mr Simion’s grasp.
Polls had narrowed in recent days and, last Friday, one poll placed Mr Dan ahead of Mr Simion for the first time. But the margin of Mr Dan’s vote yesterday was entirely unexpected.
It appears that a broad swathe of centrist voters - those who normally vote for Romania’s two largest establishment parties, the pro-EU National Liberals (PNL) and the centre-left social democrats (PSD) - got behind Mr Dan in their droves.
Mr Dan ran as an independent, promising structural reforms to tackle corruption, to continue military support for Ukraine and to keep Romania firmly aligned with the EU.
Mr Simion, a 38-year-old Eurosceptic and fan of Donald Trump, wanted Romania to halt its military aid for Ukraine.
His presidency would have strained relations with neighbouring Moldova and Ukraine.
Mr Simion’s Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), a far-right party, wants to return Romania to its 1940 borders to include Moldova, and parts of Bulgaria and western Ukraine.
Both Moldova and Ukraine have banned him from entering their countries.
The far-right leader would also have strained Romania’s relations with the EU.
Romania’s president represents the country on the world stage, including at European Council summits, and Mr Simion had indicated that he would oppose EU laws that do not, in his view, protect Romanian interests.
Many Romanians will be hoping that yesterday's result draws to a close a long and divisive electoral process.
This election was a rerun of last November’s vote, which was annulled by the country’s constitutional court after allegations of campaign irregularities by the independent, populist candidate Calin Georgescu, which he denied.
Russian interference was also suspected by state agencies.
Mr Simion's far-right AUR party will try to build on this election and the swell in support he received from voters critical of Romania’s establishment parties.
He is a young leader and has many more elections to fight in his political career.
In this election, many Romanians voiced concerns about the state of their economy and rising inequality, particularly voters who first supported Mr Georgescu and, later, Mr Simion.
They are more likely to feel that the benefits of Romania’s economic growth since joining the EU in 2007 have not been equally distributed across the country.
The new president’s first task will be to nominate a new prime minister and to get parliament’s support for the nomination.
The previous prime minister, Marcel Ciobanu, resigned two weeks ago after the presidential candidate from his centre-left PSD failed to make the second run-off.
After that, Mr Dan's more long-term task will be to address the reasons that led to such high levels of voter discontent with Romania's political system in the first place.
