The past has come to haunt a local politician who was recently elected mayor of Deva, a city in western Romania, after a 2006 episode involving him came back to public scrutiny.

Florin Oancea, a candidate of the National Liberal Party (PNL), was voted mayor by 42% of Deva’s 22,000 inhabitants who went to cast their ballot, according to preliminary results. Deva was one of the 16 Romanian localities where elections were held on November 5 to elect a mayor after the position remained opened. In the same elections, the local council of a commune was also elected.

After the win, Cristian Preda, a member of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) in the European Parliament, recalled the moment when Oancea was expelled from a master’s program for sending his driver to take an exam in his place.

“I notice that PNL is happy for having won the Deva city hall. The future mayor became known when he was a deputy mayor for sending his driver to take an exam for him, at a master’s program organized by the Vasile Goldis University. He received a RON 1,000 (EUR 217) fine and was expelled, the newspapers of the time wrote. […] Unfortunately, the tolerance for stupidity, corruption and fraud is very high, isn’t it?,” Preda told Mediafax.

Oancea told Mediafax that he takes responsibility for his mistake and that he paid for it eleven years ago, when he was an MA student in public administration at the Deva center of the Vasile Goldis University.

“It was childish of me, I was a dignitary. That six-month master in local administration had no connection with my studies. I did my studies at the right moment. Everybody knows what happened, it is an eleven-year old event, I took responsibility for it. Life goes on and I don’t want to develop the topic further,” he said.

Florin Oancea is a graduate of the Finance & Banks Department of the Economic Sciences Institute in Cluj Napoca. He served as a deputy mayor of Deva between 2004 and 2010. He also ran as an independent in the 2012 elections, and as an ALDE candidate in 2016.

(Photo source:Florin Oancea Facebook Page)

editor@romania-insider.com