The German of Romanian origin, Octavian Ursu, candidate of the Christian-Democratic Union (CDU), won his second term as mayor in Görlitz, after defeating Sebastian Wippel, the candidate of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), in the second round of the local elections.
Octavian Ursu obtained 55.8% of the votes, while Sebastian Wippel had a score of 44.2%, News.ro wrote, citing information from the German press.
In the elections in Görlitz, a city in the state of Saxony, eastern Germany, 44,500 people had the right to vote, and the turnout was 56.8%.
Octavian Ursu was born on October 28, 1967, in Bucharest, and graduated from the National University of Music, and in the spring of 1990 he settled in Görlitz, where he worked as a trumpeter in the local philharmonic orchestra (Neue Lausitzer Philharmonie). He obtained an academic title of musician with diploma (Diplom-Musiker) at the “Robert Schumann” faculty in Düsseldorf, according to the publication Europa Liberă.
Dominic Fritz's reaction
The USR leader, of German origin, who obtained Romanian citizenship in December, welcomed Octavian Ursu's victory.
“The Romanian and European Octavian Ursu won his second term as mayor in Germany, in Görlitz. He again beat a far-right candidate in the second round. It's his victory, but it's also a victory for European values,” wrote Dominic Fritz.
Fritz, mayor of Timișoara, said that “Görlitz is a city directly on the border with Poland”.
“Heating the city is done together with the Polish city of Zgorzelec. Polish is spoken as naturally as we speak Hungarian here in Timișoara. A city led by a Bucharester with dual Romanian and German citizenship,” concluded Dominic Fritz.
