Political campaign on back-to-school gift in Romania: school bags with county council’s name

Children in Bacau county in North – Eastern Romania received on their first day of school this week schoolbags and school supplies paid for by the county council. But the school bags were marked with the county council president’s name, Dragos Benea, who has thus campaigned for himself using public money, according to Digi24. The whole campaign was funded with some EUR 1.1 million from public money. In total, 44,000 such school bags were distributed across the county, the council president announced on his Facebook page. The bags were partially red, which is the logo color for the president's party, the Social Democrat Party PSD, which is Romania's ruling party. Benea says pupils in Bacau county have received school bags in the beginning of the school year for the last seven years from the county council, thus implying this is not campaigning before the upcoming presidential elections in November. Teachers say the campaign was welcome as many of the pupils who received the school bags and the supplies did not have the means to buy them anyway. But parents would have rather not seen the county council president’s name plastered on the school bags. editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: Dragos Benea on Facebook)