Romanian opposition alliance explores presidential, mayoral candidate options

Either Dacian Cioloş, the president of the opposition party PLUS, or USR leader Dan Barna would run on behalf of the USR-PLUS alliance in this year’s presidential elections, Agerpresreported.The alliance decided to come up with a presidential candidate after scoring a significant win in the recent EU Parliament elections.

“One of us with surely run. We will form a team, under any format,” Cioloş said in a TV interview, when asked if he or Barna would run.

Cioloş said that the good result the alliance scored in the EU Parliament elections justifies having a presidential candidate.

“We had over 22% at the recent elections. We are one of the three main political forces of the country. Do you see any argument to not have a candidate, given that we are one of the main political forces in the country? How could we explain not having a candidate when we had this result? This is normal. It has nothing to do with the bids of other parties. Each party has the right to present a candidate. We will talk about our political program during the campaign,” Cioloş said.

Meanwhile, Dan Barna said he would undertake a presidential bid, if USR and PLUS decide this is the option to take but would also support Cioloş, Mediafaxreported.

“These are decisions I will take together with my colleagues. There are several important nuances. To me, the personal project is to have USR established as a consistent party, one that will live long-term. To me the stake is to have this structure I invested my time in be worth it. If we decide that the best option is Dacian Cioloş, I will support it,” Barna said at the televised Marius Tuca Show.

Barna also said the two parties could opt for a president – PM duo to present.

“We are considering a duo. One party would offer the presidential candidate, the other the PM candidate […] We are two teams discussing, led by Dacian and me. In the end, undertaking a presidential bid is profoundly personal, but this is what we did today, we wrote down the pluses and minuses. Nobody made a straight-out request for a presidential bid. We are analyzing everyone’s pluses and minuses,” Barna said.

At the same time, Barna did not rule out having a candidate for the Bucharest City Hall together with the National Liberal Party (PNL). He said it was important to rid Bucharest of Gabriela Firea,