ANALYZE Vrancea elections: PSD and PNL, direct fight for the two most important positions in the county

The local elections in Vrancea will generate fierce competition between PSD and PNL for the main positions in the county. Here the liberals and social democrats decided to go separately. So, here is how the picture of the local elections in the former fiefdom of Baron Marian Oprișan looks like.

Who does PSD throw into battle?

In Vrancea we have a rarer situation. The city hall of the county seat is owned by PSD. However, the leadership of the County Council is with the PNL. In this context, we can expect a fierce battle for the two most important positions in the county. Not surprisingly, the social democrats are still counting on Cristian Misăilă for the position of mayor of the municipality of Focșani. In the previous elections, Misăilă defeated his main opponent, the liberal Ion Ștefan, with a difference of almost 7 percent (47.04% – 40.05%).

Misăilă can boast of money attracted through PNDL and of several important achievements in the mandate. As he also said:

“The most important concern since six years ago, when I took over the mandate, was related to the rehabilitation of the local infrastructure and in this sense we identified both national sources of funding – PNDL, but also European funds. We also managed to repair streets and parking lots publicly and by our own efforts.

Today, the Municipality of Focșani has 59 European projects under implementation – 47 of which are on various funding axes – ROP/POCA and 12 are projects financed through PNRR.

In total, we are talking about European funds of approximately 156 million Euros.”

At the County Council, where PSD is trying to take over from PNL, the social democrats go hand in hand with Nicușor Halici. He is a former member of the Chamber of Deputies, in the 2016-2020 legislature and current prefect. Halici made the announcement back in March.

“I have submitted my resignation from the post of prefect. It follows that the Government of Romania in a certain period that it considers necessary to take note of it and become effective. We also saw great public interest. There is no problem. Anyway, I had already previewed this thing since around January, in case I was involved in an electoral competition. I have never broken the law. I did not intend to violate it. And I hope I never have to break it either. But I will only violate it in an administrative section, if only to avert some imminent harm. So without just and maybe even if it wasn’t for the law, because here we have to understand one thing very clearly: a prefect can run for the post of president of Romania, can run for the Romanian Parliament, the European Parliament, without resign. He cannot run for local elections. That the law remained unchanged. And in such conditions, it is clear that by engaging and there is a political decision, I must also take the administrative decision that I announced to you”, declared Prefect Nicușor Halici.

In November 2022, Halici was elected president with full rights of PSD Vrancea, after having held this position for two years, but in an interim capacity. According to the CV published on the website of the Parliament, he had his first job at the age of 26 as a secretary in a commune in Vrancea county, led by Marian Oprişan, after which he was hired only on political grounds.

Born in 1977, PSD deputy Nicuşor Halici graduated in 2000 from the Faculty of Law at a private university in Bucharest. He did his master’s degree only six years later, in another field – Business Law, so that before that, in 2003, at the age of 26, he was employed as a secretary at the town hall of Păuleşti commune, Vrancea county.

Who are the liberals throwing into the fray

Halici and Misăilă will have as counter-candidates from the PNL, Dragoș Ciubotaru who was validated as the liberal candidate for the presidency of the Vrancea County Council, and Valeriu Răzmeliţă would compete for the Focșani City Hall.

Dragoş Ciubotaru was validated in February as interim president of PNL Vrancea, after the branch was left without a leader following the death of president Cătălin Toma. Previously, Ciubotaru had been mayor of Vizantea – Livezi commune, being one of the youngest mayors in Vrancea. It has the difficult role of keeping alive the memory of Cătălin Toma, the former head of the Vrancea County Council.

Valentin Resmeriţă is the interim president of PNL Focşani. He joined the PNL Vrancea team relatively recently (at the beginning of 2024), saying that he wants a different administration at the level of Focşani municipality, in which citizens are partners of the management structures and are consulted in major decisions for the city.

“As a member of this team, of the PNL, I want to lay the foundations of an administration in the city of Focşani that will somehow change the direction. (…) I would very much like the mentality of those in the local administration to change a little, to succeed in being partners with the citizens, in the sense that they must be attracted as partners in the projects we want to implement. And these projects, at least in my vision, I want to be not just constructions of buildings and sidewalks, I want to be a partnership relationship between the administration and the citizens, in which the citizens are always included, to be involved in what is happening happens in the city of Focsani”, said Valentin Resmeriţă.

Valentin Resmeriţă is the sole associate of a company from Focşani in the field of trade with construction materials and the production of metal elements for construction. The company he leads had a turnover of over 100 million lei last year.

The United Right goes with common candidates

In Vrancea, the United Right Alliance will present candidates on joint lists both to the Vrancea County Council and to the Focșani City Hall. Thus, deputy Ion Ștefan is the proposal of the United Right Alliance for the Presidency of the Vrancea County Council. He had run for mayor of Focșani in 2020, but was defeated by Misăilă.

On the other hand, Ana-Maria Dimitriu-Bunghez is the ADU candidate for Focșani City Hall. Ana-Maria Dimitriu-Bunghez was deputy mayor of the municipality of Focșani elected in 2020.

Taking into account the counter-candidates from PSD and PNL, the ADU team has minimal chances of obtaining any important position in the county.

GOLD goes with strangers

AUR goes to deputy George Badiu for the position of president of the County Council. He is also the president of the AUR Vrancea branch. The announcement was made back in March, according to local media.

According to the mentioned announcement: “The Party Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), through the National Leadership Office, validated this week the candidacies for the positions of presidents of County Councils”.

On the other hand, according to the local media, Răzvan Dragoș Anghene, the former director of the OTP Focșani Branch, is the AUR candidate for the City Hall of the county seat. The two seem to have even lower chances than the ADU candidates to obtain the two important positions in the county.

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