Romanian NGO president and former mayoral candidate plans to set up political party this year

Nicusor Dan, the president of Save Bucharest Association (Asociatia Salvati Bucurestiul), intends to set up a political party this year, together with all those who were involved in his campaign for the 2012 local elections in Bucharest. “We are dealing with a political class that no longer represents the people who put it there. New actors are needed on the political scene,” Nicusor Dan said in an interview for Epoch Times Romania. “I will set up a political party in 2014, with all those who were involved in my campaign for Mayor of Bucharest in the summer of 2012.This party will target only to win local elections in Bucharest in 2016,” he added. Nicusor Dan also talked in the interview about the protests organized in Romania against the gold mining project at Rosia Montana. “The victories chapter includes the fact that the law was withdrawn. Without the protests, this law would have been adopted and signed off by the president, and the project would have started within months,” said Dan. In his opinion, people are beginning to trust each other and to understand they represent a force, a realisation which represented another victory. On the other hand, a loss or a negative point is the “obvious gap between the political class and society.” Nicusor Dan is a Romanian activist who founded Asociatia Salvati Bucurestiul in 2006. In 2012, he run for Bucharest mayor as an independent candidate, but Sorin Oprescu won the office instead. Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com (photo source: Nicusor Dan's facebook page)