The parties of the governing coalition will mostly have separate candidates in the mayoral races, while party switching remains an issue across the political spectrum.

The plan of the governing coalition, made up of the Social Democrat Party (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL), to support common candidates in large cities that are now run by mayors from the Save Romania Union (USR) applies only to several cities although previous reports pointed to a wish for a wider shared electoral effort. 

In the 2020 elections, PNL won the city hall race in 15 large cities (county capitals), more than PSD's 14 mandates, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) won in three cities, while the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania won in one city - Sibiu. PNL won in cities such as Iași, Constanța, Arad, Oradea, Suceava, Bistrița, and Ploiești, where the party will have its own candidates again this year.

In its turn, USR managed to win the mayoral races in several large cities, now led by popular figures that many see as favorites in the coming electoral race. Among them were Timișoara, where German Dominic Fritz won the race; Brașov, where it was Allen Coliban; and Bacău, where it was Lucian Viziteu. USR also won the city hall of Alba Iulia, but mayor Gabriel Pleșa has since returned to PNL, and of Câmpulung Muscel, where Elena Lasconi was elected mayor. The party also managed to win two district city halls in Bucharest, where Radu Mihaiu now leads District 2 and Clotilde Armand District 1. The highlight win for the reformist USR was in Bucharest, where Nicușor Dan won the general city hall. Dan ran as an independent, also supported by PNL, which in 2020 was opposing PSD. That is no longer the case as the two parties now share a candidate for the Bucharest City Hall, namely Cătălin Cîrstoiu.

The alliance they struck to govern and for the EU Parliament elections proved challenging to replicate for the local elections, with a few exceptions, one being Timișoara. There, after vocal opposition from the local leader of PNL, PSD and PNL reached an agreement to support the PSD candidate Alfred Simonis to lead the County Council and former mayor Nicolae Robu for the Timișoara City Hall against Dominic Fritz. This happened even though the PNL branches in the county voted against the electoral alliance with PSD. PNL Timiș leader Alin Nica opposed the alliance with PSD and was eventually removed from his post after criticizing the party leadership for the partnership with PSD.

In Cluj, Cluj-Napoca mayor Emil Boc told Ziua de Cluj in March that he knows of no USR mayors in the county and does not see the point of an alliance with PSD, while the president of PNL Cluj, MEP Daniel Buda, argued his party could win by itself all the political battles in the county. "I'm only a mayor conducting my mandate, and I am minding my business as best as I can. This is why Cluj residents elected me, and this is what I do. Those who run the organization deal with the political issues. As far as I know, there are no USR mayors in Cluj, so I don't see why an alliance would be needed," Boc said.

Similarly, in Alba Iulia, PNL deputy Florin Roman, also the party's coordinator for the local elections, said in a social media post that PNL will not enter an alliance with PSD in Alba and that the party he represents can win the elections by itself, News.ro reported.

Party switching and recruitment

Party switching is nothing new in local politics, and the run-up for the year's elections has already seen its share of elected officials change parties, this time within the governing alliance. Pundits have explained the phenomenon as a lack of attachment to ideology, while some of the elected officials doing the switch as a way to ensure that their institutions get from the central authorities the funding required to finance various projects.

After a 2014 ordinance issued by the government led by Victor Ponta allowed local officials to change parties before that year's elections without being sanctioned, 17.4% of mayors, 13.8% of local councilors, and 11.5% of county councilors did so, a report by Expert Forum showed. PSD attracted the most politicians, or 79% of the mayors who decided to change parties (436 of them), and local councilors generally followed the same re-affiliation trend as the mayors.

This year, the government ordinance stipulating that the European Parliament and the local elections would be held on the same day also created the premises for the phenomenon to continue. The ordinance, in its Article 33, mentions that those who already serve a mandate as local representatives can join any political party to run on behalf of for the June 9 elections without their mandate ending. They can do so up to 45 days before the elections, Toni Greblă, the president of the Permanent Electoral Authority, explained in a press conference.

While some elected officials are busy changing camps, representatives of the reformist opposition party USR have said that the governing coalition has been trying to recruit its mayors. USR president Cătălin Drulă said some USR mayors were 'blackmailed' or 'tempted' to join PSD by being promised 'tens of millions' if they switched sides or threatened with audits by the Court of Accounts if they didn't, he told Digi24. "USR had 40 mayors at the last elections- in total, there are 3,000 in Romania – but there is a bounty on their head […] In the end, the localities are not that important. It is more of a symbolic thing. And it didn't work out with very many of them," Drulă said.

USR hasn't been the only party complaining about the phenomenon of party shifting. PNL's Raluca Turcan, the current culture minister and also the president of PNL Sibiu, argued the departure of some mayors from PNL to PSD "weakens the coalition and endangers the major country projects." She said the mayors who switched parties did so because of pressures and sometimes blackmail, "things that have no place in an EU-member country and deeply unfair between two governing partners," News.ro reported.

Bids for reelection

Timișoara, the largest city in Romania's Banat region, is set to see a rerun of the 2020 race when USR's Dominic Fritz defeated PNL's Nicolae Robu. Fritz, a German citizen who first arrived in Timișoara when he was 19 years old to work as a volunteer with children from a local orphanage, won the 2020 race with 53.25% of the votes compared to Robu's 29.87% score.

Fritz is supported by Alianța Timișoara Unită (United Timișoara Alliance - ADU), including USR, PMP, Forța Dreptei, and UDMR, while Robu enjoys the added support of PSD this time. After being removed from PNL, Alin Nica, the former president of PNL Timiș, will run for a new mandate as head of the Timiș County Council, this time on behalf of ADU, the alliance supporting the USR mayor Dominic Fritz.

In Cluj-Napoca, PNL and PSD have separate candidates. Mayor Emil Boc, who is currently serving his fifth mandate, enters the race as a favorite. Even though PNL suggested he could run for the European Parliament elections, Boc said he wasn't interested and insisted his focus was on the city of Cluj-Napoca. Boc, who also served as prime minister between 2008 and 2012, will run against PSD's Aurelia Cristea and ADU's Viorel Băltărețu, among others. 

In Braşov, another city where USR won the mayor seat in 2020, PSD and PNL are supporting the PNL candidate George Scripcaru against USR's Allen Coliban, who enjoys the wider support of ADU and the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania. Scripcaru was the mayor of Brașov for 16 years, until he lost to Coliban in 2020. 

In Iași, incumbent mayor Mihai Chirica, currently representing PNL, will run against PSD's Bogdan Balanișcu and USR's Marius Bodea, among others. Chirica is serving his second mandate, having won in 2016 on behalf of PSD and in 2020 for PNL. He was excluded from PSD in 2018 after criticizing the party's leadership, which included Liviu Dragnea at the time. Chirica faced Bodea at the 2016 elections as well, only at the time Bodea was part of PNL. In the meantime, he joined USR.

Constanța is another city where PSD and PNL will have separate candidates. The head of the Consumer Protection Agency, Horia Constantinescu, will run on behalf of PSD and against the incumbent mayor, Vergil Chițac, representing PNL, and USR's Stelian Ion, a former minister of justice and currently a deputy in Romania's Parliament.

In Oradea, a PNL stronghold, Ilie Bolojan will run again for the seat of president of Bihor County Council, a position he won in 2020, while Oradea mayor Florin Birta will ask voters for another mandate. Bolojan, who was mayor of Oradea for three mandates from 2008 to 2020, is one of the most popular leaders of PNL. Bolojan, known for rolling out numerous EU-funded infrastructure projects that have transformed Oradea, won his third mayor mandate with more than 70% of the votes and his county council one with more than 60%. Bolojan will run against PSD's Aurel Mohan, a neurologist who teaches at the Faculty of Medicine in Oradea and also served briefly as a state secretary in the Health Ministry, and Alex Orjan, supported by United Right Alliance, while Birta will face PSD's Adrian Madar and United Right's Daniel Palaghianu in the mayor race.

(Photo: Alexandru Busca/ Inquam Photos)

simona@romania-insider.com