Which exotic characters want to get the Romanians’ vote in the 2024 elections

The 2024 election year is a decisive one for the established parties, but also a launching pad for formations or controversial figures on the Romanian public scene.

The Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) rejected, on Sunday, the Protocol establishing the “Grădina Maicii Domnului” Electoral Alliance, formed by the Our Romania Party (PRN), led by Gheorghe Funar, former mayor of Cluj, and the Conservative Autonomous Dacism party (p. DAC), led by Cătălin Berenghi, known for the “pig protest”, against the construction of the mega-mosque in the Capital during the time when Victor Ponta was prime minister and had proposed this project.

The two formations intended to run together in the European parliamentary elections on June 9, 2024.

Funar, Sosoacă and the organizer of the pig protest

Both Gheorghe Funar and Cătălin Berenghi have been candidates over time for the most coveted position in the state, that of the country’s president. And they share not only the desire to be heads of state, but also similar approaches. While Cătălin Berenghi presents himself as a Dacian, according to mainnews.ro, the name he also gave to his party, Gheorghe Funar claims that Jesus Christ was a Dacian, and the Dacians built the pyramids and discovered America.

Funar, who held the positions of parliamentarian, mayor or president of the PRM, is a controversial figure also because of his anti-Hungarian and anti-Semitic approaches. Moreover, according to mainnews.ro, Cătălin Berenghi is an admirer of the former legionnaire Prime Minister of Romania, Ion Antonescu, a character who went down in history for the crimes committed against the Jews. And in the political program of his formation, one of the points refers to a debate with evidence for and against the Holocaust. Another point is the promotion of nationalism in educational institutions.

Previously, Berenghi and Funar announced that they wanted to ally with SOS Romania, the party of Diana Şoşoacă, Funar having an older collaboration with the senator, the two appearing together at protests against the restrictions, during the pandemic, and supporting a petition to change the country’s name from Romania to Getia, according to the initiator Mărgărit Daniel, who quotes them in its description.

Senator Diana Șoșoacă, excluded in 2021 from the parliamentary group of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), with which she entered Parliament, and which founded the SOS Romania party, recently stated, in an interview for BZI, that the Italian diaspora takes asked to run for president. Also measured in the polls, the senator has not yet officially announced her candidacy.

Diana Șoșoacă is increasingly known for her anti-Western outings, going several times to the Russian Embassy in Romania. Recently, a close associate of Putin, Dmitri Rogozin, former head of the Russian Space Agency, current senator of the Zaporozhye region, in southern Ukraine, occupied by Russia, promoted a pro-Russian speech by the senator on a social network.

Exotics from AUR

Moreover, the AUR party, of which Şoșoacă was a part, led by George Simion, brought to public attention controversial names that it supports in the elections. On Saturday in Constanţa County, during a meeting where AUR candidates from the county were presented for the June 9 local elections, George Simion announced that businessman Mohammad Murad is supported in the elections for the head of the County Council.

Mohammad Murad, former investor in a famous TV show, was an independent candidate, supported by PSD, for the position of mayor of Mangalia in 2020, but lost to the liberal Radu Cristian.

In that electoral campaign, he was also involved in several scandals, after allegedly promising a CEC card, worth 10,000 lei, to the elderly, if he became mayor, this being an essential communist symbol in the life of Romanians before 1989.

And on the day of the local elections, several people from Mangalia accused that several members of his campaign staff paid electoral bribes, the police in Constanţa announcing that they found over 160,000 lei in the car of a member of Murad’s team.

Another AUR candidate for a public office in Constanța county, Ovidiu Cupșa, was recently proposed by the formation for Constanța City Hall, a position he targeted in past years, but for which he had not officially applied.

Cupșa is a former vice-president of PNL Constanța who held several public positions in the past, such as that of local and county councilor, and was at the head of the Romanian Center for the Training and Improvement of Naval Transport Personnel (CERONAV), under the Ministry of Transport.

The AUR candidate recently caused controversy with his statements made in a live broadcast on Facebook, in which he said that a person suffering from depression did not receive enough beating as a child, criticizing the initiatives of city halls to support people with such conditions.

The return of Dan Diaconescu

Another controversy was also caused by the former television personality, Dan Diaconescu, sent to court for sex with minors, who announced that he will run for the European Parliament elections on the list of the Alliance of Romanian Digitali party, founded by Sorin Voinea, according to Realitatea.net.

And Marian Vanghelie announced that she wants to return to the local administration and is running for a new mandate at the Sector 5 City Hall, as an independent, according to click.ro. Vanghelie was sentenced last year to 11 years and 8 months in prison, for taking bribes, in a case concerning acts committed while he was an mayor at the City Hall, a position from which he was suspended after being remanded in custody.