Traian Băsescu, skeptical that the right has a chance to win the Capital City Hall: “I have never mentioned something like this before”

The electoral race for Bucharest City Hall is a balanced one, believes former president Traian Băsescu, according to whom the right-wing political parties seem to have fallen “into PSD's net”.

“Honestly, I think it's a robust competition, it's a competition where you have plenty to choose from. We have the mayor from Sector 6 (Ciprian Ciucu, nr), we have the mayor from Sector 4 (Daniel Băluță, nr), we have (Cătălin) Drula who is a former minister, so people with experience in administration”, said the former head of state on Monday evening, in a telephone intervention on B1 tv.

“But when it comes down to it, I'm afraid that the right has fallen into the PSD's net and is going with two candidates, with Ciucu and Drula. I'm afraid that the conditions have been created for the right not to win the elections, because Băluță, for example, also has the PSD's votes, but also has a good part of the AUR's votes. Because many of the AUR's members are former PSD sympathizers, voters”, the former president explained his position.

“I think the right should put their hands on paper and pencil and do a calculation and they will easily see that they cannot win if they have two right-wing candidates. Or they almost cannot win. It would be a miracle if they win,” he added.

What else did Traian Băsescu say about the elections for the Capital City Hall:

• “In my opinion, they fell into the trap of the PSD, which set the condition that they should not be a single candidate. I have not yet mentioned something like this, for a party to set the condition of other parties whether to run in the alliance or not. It's ridiculous.
• The government did not give money to the Capital City Hall to repair Pasaj Unirii, but Ciolacu gave money to PSD, Mr. Băluță, to repair it.
• In my opinion, Băluță has disqualified himself, it shows that he has no reason to want to be the general mayor of the Capital, as long as he accepts this type of barter, that is, the money due to the Capital City Hall should be directed to him and for what? To make it look like he's doing something. But it is doing what the Capital City Hall was supposed to do if it received the money.
• Adrian Năstase, wanting to make my mandate insignificant, distributed, practically created new legislation, through which a large part of Bucharest's revenues go to the sectors. Also, the authority part. The General Mayor has no idea what building permits the district mayors give. Or look at Union Passage.“

On Sunday evening, the former head of state said that he will go to vote in the elections for Bucharest, but that “I have no prediction of the winner”.

“Of course I will vote. I look at it this way, it's a good competition. We have two sector mayors who obtained good scores for re-election, Ciucu and Băluţă. We have a former Minister of Transport, Mr. Drula. So we have three candidates with experience in the administration. (…) I don't have a prediction of the winner, but I'm glad that they are strong candidates. We would also have a candidate who would arouse the enthusiasm of the sovereignists, but also of the PSD. And I'm afraid that Mrs. Alexandrescu will take a lot of the PSD electorate from Bucharest”, he declared, to TVR Info.