Bucharest General Mayor Nicusor Dan, who also seeks a term as president of Romania, claims that in the last five years the Social Democratic Party (PSD) has spent over 50 million euros of public money on electoral propaganda.
Nicusor Dan voiced on Tuesday his desire to know what the public money pre-campaign expenditures of the ‘Romania Forward’ Alliance’s presidential candidate Crin Antonescu amount to.
On Monday, the PSD asked Dan to disclose who are his pre-campaign sponsors who donated more than RON 40,500 – the equivalent of 10 minimum gross salaries in Romania.
„The PSD, which has spent over 50 million euros of public money in the last five years on electoral propaganda, the same party that allocated 12 million euros of public funds for Prime Minister Ciolacu’s presidential campaign alone, now has the audacity to summon me to make public the donations received from citizens. The PSD’s insolence is an insult to the 9,000 people who donated from their savings to support the ‘Honest Romania’ campaign,” Nicusor Dan wrote on Facebook, adding that as soon as the amounts spent on Crin Antonescu’s pre-campaign are announced, he may participate in a discussion on this subject.
„It would be good to at least see the amount spent, in a gesture of transparency, just as I made public all the private donations used in my campaign. After that, we can have a discussion,” explained the General Mayor.
The PSD announced on Monday that Nicusor Dan has an „obligation” to inform the voters who his sponsors are before the start of the electoral campaign, citing his own statements according to which at least two individuals have exceeded the ceiling of RON 40,500 and, according to the law, he is required publicly disclose their identity. „In the name of ‘transparency’ and of the ‘honest Romania’ he invokes, Nicusor Dan has the moral obligation to present to the voters who his sponsors are before the start of the electoral campaign and not after the election, as he has done in the case of other ballots,” a PSD release states. .
AGERPRES
