The chair of the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR), Kelemen Hunor, considers that the future governing coalition should have only one candidate for the presidential elections, without ruling out the existence of other candidates from the democratic range.
„There must be only one candidate on behalf of the coalition. This doesn’t mean that there can’t be a candidate who also comes from this range, but he or she must not be from the coalition, because then chaos would ensue, as we saw with [Marcel] Ciolacu and [Nicolae] Ciuca, something that must be avoided. But, of course, here it remains to be analysed whether it is better to be one to one, whether the electorate is not polarized very strongly or we have to accept that there are two candidates in the democratic range, even three, because after that in the second round you have to have backup. So, at this point, I have only one thing to say: the coalition must have only one candidate. This does not mean that there cannot be other candidates from this democratic range,” said Kelemen Hunor, in Parliament.
He emphasized that UDMR will support that one candidate of the coalition.
„We are considering having a single candidate and whoever that candidate will be, we will support him/her. Nicusor Dan has announced that he is going to run for president, as you know, he also said that he spoke with several leaders and took the initiative. He has an advantage in that respect, he dictates the pace, the cadence. So, from this point of view, of course, a mayor general starts such a race with 300-something thousand votes and with this possibility of bringing together more votes around him. But I don’t want to go into other details, because we are far from having a name from the coalition and let us see what the coalition will look like,” explained the UDMR leader.
Asked whom he would support now – Nicusor Dan or Elena Lasconi, given that the UDMR had previously announced its support for the Save Romania Union (USR) candidate, Kelemen Hunor said that the situation is different now.
He also mentioned that no names have been discussed in the coalition so far, which has been busy with the government program.
AGERPRES
