Race for Bucharest City Hall is on

Fifteen candidates are vying for the position of general mayor of Bucharest, who will serve a four-year term. The race is likely to be colorful, as it includes candidates with very diverse backgrounds. Among them are Anghel Iordanescu, a former coach of the national soccer team; tabloid figure Irinel Columbeanu; Gigi Becali, owner of Steaua soccer club; and Nicusor Dan, president of the Save Bucharest association. The incumbent, Sorin Oprescu, and Silviu Prigoana, founder of the urban cleaning company Rosal, are the early favorites.

Otilia Haraga

Local elections for voting on mayors, local and county councilors and the presidents of the city councils will take place on June 10.

The candidate elected to take the helm of the Bucharest City Hall will inherit tricky issues that have gone untackled for years, much to the public’s frustration.

These include bad traffic, the lack of parking spaces, the lack of green spaces and cycle lanes, stray dogs and the absence of coherent urban policies, to name just a few.

In 2012, the Bucharest City Hall’s approved budget was RON 4.64 billion (approximately EUR 1.07 billion). The money will be spent on continuing projects started in previous years and subsidies for RADET, the supplier of hot water and central heating, and RATB, the Bucharest public transport network.

No money has been allocated to new infrastructure projects. However, the budget was approved by the counselors of the Democrat-Liberal Party, who hold most of the votes on the Bucharest Council, to the discontent of general mayor Oprescu who described it as “unbalanced.”

The budget for 2012 is slightly higher than the figure for 2011, when the Bucharest City Hall had RON 4.5 million at its disposal.

At the end of last year the City Hall had loans of EUR 873 million from the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, as well as from a bond emission, according to media reports.

The current general mayor of Bucharest, Sorin Oprescu, is a former surgeon who joined the Social Democrat Party (PSD), and was elected president of the party in 2006. Oprescu is running for a new term as an independent candidate “supported by the Social-Liberal Union (USL).”

“I wish to continue to change the city for the better, for all of us to develop and reach normality, and I am convinced that over the coming years we will manage to do that,” he said.

Projects that have been initiated or completed during Oprescu’s term include the Basarab passage and the modernization of several other passages at Lujerului, Piata Victoriei, Piata Unirii, Obor, Universitatii and Pipera.

The National Arena, built on the site of the former Lia Manoliu national stadium, was also finished during his time in office, while works are under way for the construction of an underground parking lot at Universitate.

However, the mayor has come under criticism for what opponents describe as his failure to deal with the stray dog problems, on which his main competitor, Silviu Prigoana, has campaigned energetically.

Prigoana, a businessman who founded urban cleaning company Rosal Group and is also a well-known figure in the Romanian mass media, as founder of several niche media outlets, such as the Realitatea TV channel Etno, Taraf, Taifasuri, and TV Sport (the current sport.ro), is running on behalf of the Democrat Liberal Party (PD-L).

His agenda relies heavily on a commitment to solve the controversial issue of stray dogs, which has split the population. “In six months we will solve this,” he claimed, advancing as a solution removing the dogs from the streets and placing them into specially created shelters administered via public-private partnership. “The dogs must live, but not on the streets,” he has said.

Another issue on Prigoana’s agenda is the renovation of the historic buildings in Bucharest that have fallen into disrepair. “In Bucharest, there are 2,821 national heritage buildings, most of them in an advanced state of decay,” said the candidate.

Prigoana, who is famous for wearing only black suits and ties, promised to wear white from now on, if elected mayor.

“Bucharest must be a European capital. I entered the electoral campaign because I want this, so that my children can learn in the country, stay in Bucharest and have the comfort enjoyed by the European citizen,” he said.

While these two candidates are both bolstered by the overt or implicit support of political parties, Nicusor Dan, president of the Save Bucharest Association, is running as an independent, and has garnered much support from civil society and Bucharest’s artistic community.

The candidate says he has the upper hand over his opponents by not being part of the establishment – meaning “what we are used to seeing as the system, influence-peddling networks where everything is discussed behind closed doors and citizens do not benefit from transparency,” said Dan.

“I am a person who knows what a European city in the 21st century means,” he said, adding that the mayor should not confine his efforts to ‘filling potholes in the road’ but should attract investors to the city.

Dan, a mathematician who won first prize in the International Mathematics Olympics in 1987 and 1988, studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris between 1992 and 1995, and got his PhD in mathematics at the Paris-XIII University.

Upon returning to Bucharest, he designed and developed the Bucharest Normal Superior School, of which he was also executive director between 2000 and 2006.

As part of the activity of the Save Bucharest Association he founded in 2008, he fought against the chaotic urbanization of Bucharest and saved green spaces from being turned into residential compounds.

“I want a city where one enjoys living, where one can enjoy walking on the street, a city where the bus comes at the time written on the board – and where something is written on the board – a city where you have places to take your child after school, where you don’t have to come downtown to see a film, where you can drink water from the tap,” said Dan.

He promised that if elected mayor he will invest in people. “We have to do things in such a way that young people do not want to leave the city, so Bucharest becomes a regional center in IT, creative industries and higher education,” he added.

Another candidate, Gigi Becali, is a local businessman and owner of the Steaua soccer club. He has promised to erect 10 new churches in each sector of Bucharest, meaning 60 in total, so that the Bucharest faithful will have places to worship, while his next priorities would be healthcare and education. Becali said these issues will be easy to solve using the money that has been stolen by the Bucharest administration so far.

Anghel Iordanescu, who is the candidate of the National Union for Romania’s Progress, is a former coach of the national soccer team. “I am very confident I will win. I remember that some time ago, Bucharesters gave me a mandate to represent Romanian sport. I did it then and I am confident I will succeed now as well,” said Iordanescu.

He said he wants to make Bucharest a “clean” capital and solve issues such as transportation and parking.

Businessman Irinel Columbeanu is a well-known figure to local tabloid readers, mainly because of his marriage to and divorce from the much-younger Monica Columbeanu. Running as an independent, Columbeanu said he had made the decision on his own, against the advice of his near and dear, as a “simple citizen of Bucharest for the past 52 years.”

The businessman has so far not released any agenda setting out the objectives that he wants to pursue. “I don’t think stray dogs are one of the problems facing Bucharest, this issue should be dealt with humanely. I think for Bucharest it is important to start partnerships with other European cities,” he said.

otilia.haraga@business-review.ro

CANDIDATES FOR BUCHAREST GENERAL MAYOR

George Becali (New Generation Christian Democrat Party)

Constantin Cojocaru (People’s Party PP)

Adrian Irinel Columbeanu (Popular and Social Protection Party)

Nicusor Dan (independent)

Petrica Dima (Romanian Socialist Party)

Florin Dobrescu (“All For The Country” Party)

Constantin Ionescu (Workers’ Social Democrat Party)

Anghel Iordanescu (National Union for Romania’s Progress)

Vasile Lincu (Ecologist Union in Romania)

Vasile Horia Mocanu (Dan Diaconescu – People’s Party)