Capital city mayor Nicusor Dan and potential presidential candidate in the presidential election of May 4 on Wednesday said that president Klaus Iohannis was "absent from public communication" in his second term, but that his views, when he did express them, were pertinent.
"The president was absent from public communication, although, when he did express his opinions, he was pertinent. The few answers he gave to the journalists' questions were pertinent. For example, when it comes to the war in Ukraine, I think that Romania, with small nuances, was doing the right thing. But the president of Romania did not come out five times, ten times to explain to the public why it is so important for us to help in this war. And by his absence, in an issue in which he acted correctly, he left room for these conspiracy theories: that we are actually going to war against Russia and all kinds of nonsense, which, due to lack of information, emerged. So, this was obviously a big minus of president Iohannis," Nicusor Dan told Digi 24 private television broadcaster.
He said that, in what concerns the war in Ukraine, the situation can be explained "very simply," but that it will take time for "an already formed opinion to be turned" or at least put into question.
"Things are very clear there: we have an aggressor. After 70 years of peace, we have an imbalance in a regime of peace and then problems with the border stability. Things are very clear. We have the Republic of Moldova in danger. We have the danger that Russia will be Romania's neighbour if, God forbid, it wins the war in Ukraine. So there are some things that can be, in my opinion, easily explained," said the mayor general.
On the other hand, he accused a "degradation" of the act of justice, "especially regarding the activity" of the prosecutor's offices. At the same time, he noted that president Iohannis "has not been very active" in this area.
"In my opinion, the big minus was the fact that, from a certain point, after 2017-2018, he was no longer very active in the justice process. And it was necessary, because if you look at the disappointments of Romanians, according to the questionnaires, some of them are related to justice and corruption. (...) Substantive things need to be done here, because people cannot be fooled with slogans," said Nicusor Dan.
In his opinion, Romanians "indirectly penalized" Klaus Iohannis, by penalizing the PNL (National Liberal Party) and the liberal candidate Nicolae Ciuca in the November elections.
"But the way he will resolve this crisis generated by the cancellation of the elections will be defining for the way the world will perceive him after the end of his mandate. (...) People expect a serious solution to their problems. They expect the institutions to function, the state hospitals to function; the corruption they see every day to be reduced. They expect the Prosecutor's Office to get to the bottom of the big corruption cases, the big tax evasion. These are the expectations," he said.
Nicusor Dan also stated that it is important to "clarify" the reason for the cancellation of the election because, otherwise, "distrust" in state institutions will increase. He also stated that these clarifications must be provided by the president of the state, following information from the intelligence services, the Permanent Electoral Authority and the Prosecutor's Office or ANAF (National Authority for Fiscal Administration).
"Klaus Iohannis is responsible for this failure - the fact that we ended up canceling the election and things were not prevented - because, through his role in the CSAT (Supreme Council for Country Defence), he somehow coordinates the intelligence services. (...) His fault is that the system coordinated by him did not prevent an extremely serious fact, that elections were canceled because a candidate was favoured. And the fault has been prolonged by the fact that this explanation is delayed for a month and a half," Nicusor Dan appreciated.