Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) Chairman Kelemen Hunor told AGERPRES on Monday that he is not surprised by the announcement by Social Democratic Party (PSD) Chairman Marcel Ciolacu to run for the Romanian Presidency and that he categorically sees the Social Democrat leader in the second round of the presidential elections, where Elena Lasconi, head of Save Romania Union (USR), could be a surprise.

„I’m just going on mathematics based on what I see at the moment and I’m not going into other speculations: Ciolacu is definitely entering the second round and Mrs. Lasconi is the person who could be a surprise in 2024 in a second round. At least that’s how I see it. So she has the potential and the human resources, the inner resources, to come second. This is what I see at the moment and after that, of course, we will see,” said Kelemen Hunor.

The UDMR leader sees it „absolutely natural” for Marcel Ciolacu to run for the presidency, just as the other parties that have announced candidates have done.

„It was natural to have these decisions, because the party leader assumes this candidacy. Both at USR and AUR [the Alliance for Romanians’ Union] and probably the same will happen at PNL [the National Liberal Party], where everyone already takes Mr. Ciuca’s candidacy as something decided, because you don’t fill the whole country with billboards for three months without running. What would be the reasoning? And from this point of view, I believe that the PNL announcement with Chairman Ciuca as a presidential candidate will follow,” said Kelemen Hunor.

The UDMR leader said that now everyone is waiting for the possible announcement of Mircea Geoana’s candidacy, whom he sees as „a kind of Godot,” „he has been a candidate, a political leader, party chair, president of the Senate, but he also has a political handicap: he has no party.”

As for the future candidate of the UDMR for Romania’s presidency, Kelemen Hunor said that the candidate will be nominated on September 6.

AGERPRES