Former Energy Minister Virgil Popescu who was manhandled by presidential fontrunner George Simion during a speech in the Romanian Parliament said he is “afraid” for the country’s future if George Simion wins the runoff.
Simion, 38, grabbed the energy minister and struck him on the back while he was addressing lawmakers in February 2022 leading to the suspension of a parliamentary session.
“I am afraid for our country. Romania cannot have an aggressor as president. I have experienced first-hand what George Simion’s aggression means. It’s not a joke… It’s reality. A dangerous one,” said Virgil Popescu, who’s now a MEP for the Liberal Party in a Facebook post.
“Simion himself says to those who do not vote for him: What am I doing with you, individually, not in a group? I see you as stupid and irrational. I don’t wish that on you or your children,” he said.
“He pushed me and grabbed me by the neck while I was speaking in Parliament. He hurled insults at me. He harassed me at the airport while I was coming from my daughter’s wedding. I have received death threat messages against my children,” the Liberal MEP said.
“Now, for a moment, imagine that it wasn’t me. Imagine it was you. Because this is what the whole country will look like with Simion as president. You, when you go to work and a colleague swears at you, grabs you by the collars and yells at you. You, when you go to an important family event, and someone follows you with their phone and tries to humiliate you in public. You, when you receive a message in which someone threatens your child. What would it be like to know that the man who does all this wants to become the president of Romania?
“ What kind of country do we want to be? A Romania in which the president strikes and threatens? A Romania where there are lists of the enemies of the people?”
Nationalist Simion faces centrist Bucharest mayor Nicusor Dan in the May 18 presidential runoff.
