“Nicușor Dan’s move to the presidency from the mayor of Bucharest presents an opportunity for the next mayor of Bucharest to be a politician who is politically and administratively prepared for a similar trajectory (In this case, I mentioned Ciprian Ciucu of the National Liberal Party(” – I wrote on December 9 last year, after the presidential elections were cancelled.
And a week later, I reiterated the idea that “for the Liberals, a Nicușor Dan who became the president of the country opens the way for mayor of Sector 6, Ciprian Ciucu entering the competition for Bucharest mayor. He has enough essential qualities to succeed Nicușor Dan as mayor, he just needs his party not to give into temptation of sterile backstage games.”
In the months that followed, the developments played out as we know them: Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan ran for president and was elected, so he ended up in Cotroceni, and Ciprian Ciucu decided to run for mayor of Bucharest and polls place him among the favorites.
Of course, at this moment, President Dab says his favorite is the former head of the Save Romanian Union (Eds: the party Nicusor Dan founded) Cătălin Drulă. On the other hand, Nicușor Dan has shown that he is pragmatic enough to support the formula with the greatest chances, mathematically and politically of success.
In fact, in terms of personal experience, Nicușor Dan is the best placed among the leading politicians to properly understand the stakes of having a mayor from a reformist party. Ciucu and Drulă correspond to this profile, but if Dan’s evaluation indicate that Ciucu has a better chance, it is hard to believe that the president will pull in another direction.
But as the mayoral elections of Bucharest on December 7, the game has also become interesting in the pro-Russian camp.
Banned presidential candidate Călin Georgescu asked his followers to boycott the election and, logically from this perspective, he did not announce his support either for Anca Alexandrescu who offered him a TV platform, or for a possible alternative AUR candidate, who had supported him to run for the presidential elections.
Perhaps the serious criminal cases he is facing linked to the Russian support he received to win the presidential race, perhaps the possible contempt that he always felt towards George Simion or maybe all of these together, determined Calin Georgescu to adopt the more comfortable position of boycott. From this shelter, he can undermine his competition on the pro-Russian populist level without being accused by those running for mayor that he is dividing the extremist camp of which he is also a part.
And even more interesting than that is the fact that AUR, the party with the highest rating in the polls (fa ahead o the party in second place) was not able to nominate a candidate from its own ranks. The largest party had to swallow hard and assume the candidacy of a “Georgist”, in the person of TV personality Anca Alexandrescu.
Under the baton of party president of George Simion, the AUR balance sheet looks shaky:
- In the November 2024 presidential elections, he did indeed have his own candidate – George Simion himself. But the AUR candidate lost miserably, although he had fought for him not only AUR, but even PSD.
- For the elections resumed in May, for a few months AUR did not go with its own candidate, but adopted a foreigner – Calin Georgescu. When the Georgescu variant did not pass the institutional filter to officially submit its candidacy, AUR had to go on a breakdown regime.
- This is how the Simion option came back to the fore, but, once again, the AUR’s own candidate was defeated. He was defeated twice in five months in the same election – a rare “performance”!• Now, in the elections for the Bucharest City Hall, Simion’s AUR shows new weaknesses: it did not find anyone inside for the most coveted and impregnated public office legitimacy, after that of president of the country.
Of course, the question hangs in the air why George Simion did not assume his candidacy for the position of general mayor of Bucharest himself? After all, he is the president of the largest party at the moment.
Was Simion afraid of failure? Most likely, yes.
But which failure was Simion most afraid of? Losing to other candidates, Ciucu, Băluță or Drulă? Or a possible failure and in front of Anca Alexandrescu, and by ricochet, in front of him… Călin Georgescu?
Of course, he can invoke the need not to divide the so-called “sovereignist” votes. But the argument is weak, because the AUR leader would thus admit two major vulnerabilities:
- He is not able to secure the “sovereignist” corridor for a single candidate (and he was not, since Anca Alexandrescu entered the race).
- He, president of the party and ex-presidential, would be far below the score of his own party, so in no way a locomotive for AUR.
George Simion, personally, got tired of losing. So he “externalized” this ungrateful position to the party.
Moldova journalist receives death threat after inteview with politician
