Former MEP Vlad Gheorghe withdraws from Bucharest mayoral race, backs Liberal candidate
Former MEP Vlad Gheorghe has withdrawn from the race for the Bucharest City Hall and urged people to support the candidate of the National Liberal Party (PNL), district 6 mayor Ciprian Ciucu. The announcement was made in a press conference on Tuesday, December 2, alongside the latter.
To motivate his decision, Gheorghe pointed at the rising score of extremist candidate Anca Alexandrescu, although he did not name her.
“The extremist candidate, with ties and history in the Social Democratic Party (PSD), has real chances of becoming mayor of the capital. At this moment, the responsible thing to do is to support Ciprian Ciucu, so that Bucharest remains a bastion of democracy and does not end up in the hands of PSD extremists. I ask all those who wanted to vote for me in the December 7 elections to support Ciprian Ciucu,” said Vlad Gheorghe, cited by Digi24.
In turn, Ciprian Ciucu thanked Gheorghe for his support. “We both have a clear vision for this city, one against bureaucracy, for eliminating corruption, and for bringing efficiency to the administration. What unites us are European and democratic values,” he said.
Ciucu also highlighted the current ranking in polls, according to the National Liberal Party. “The PSD candidate is stabilized in third place, the USR candidate in fourth place, with very little chance of growth, and is running a negative, divisive campaign,” he said.
Vlad Gheorghe’s announcement comes just a few days before the Bucharest elections, scheduled for Sunday, December 7. Despite his announcement, Gheorghe’s name will remain on the ballot.
Last week, Ciprian Ciucu also received the backing of the small center-right party Forta Dreptei, led by former prime minister Ludovic Orban, but also from the reformist party REPER.
At the end of November, Vlad Gheorghe published a poll conducted by the polling firm CIRA, which ranked the current mayor of district 4, Daniel Băluță, with 24%, followed by Ciprian Ciucu, the mayor of district 6, with 21%, and Anca Alexandrescu with 19%. Immediately after the poll was published, the former MEP appealed to the other candidates.
“If we don’t sit at the same table, there is a major risk that PSD or AUR will take over the capital. If that happens, we are all to blame,” Vlad Gheorghe wrote on his Facebook page.
A more recent poll, published on Monday and conducted by AtlasIntel at the request of HotNews, showed a different order in the Bucharest ranking: Daniel Băluță in first place, with 23.3%, followed closely by Anca Alexandrescu (23.2%), and Ciprian Ciucu in third place with 21.7%. In fourth place, according to the survey, is USR candidate Cătălin Drulă with 15.5%. Vlad Gheorghe was rated at 0.9% in voting intentions.
A lawyer by profession, Vlad Gheorghe, 40, holds a bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Law, Romanian-American University, Bucharest (2004–2008), and a master’s degree in Tax Law from the University of Bucharest (2016–2017, without dissertation). He entered politics in 2015, as a volunteer for the Save Bucharest Union (USB), which later became USR. He resigned from USR at the beginning of 2024 following an internal scandal. That year, he ran for a new term as an MEP, as an independent, but did not gather the necessary votes.
(Photo source: Vlad Gheorghe on Facebook video capture)
