US ambassador: I encourage Romanians not to vote for candidates prosecuted for corruption

Hans Klemm, the ambassador of United States at Bucharest declared on Tuesday at Constanta that “Romania became a leader in the fight against corruption” and advised the Romanian voters not to vote for candidates prosecuted for corruption.

In an interview for HotNews.ro, he declared that the election campaign is very important for the future of Romania and that he encourages all those who have this right to bear it, as the campaign follows the events from October-November 2015, after the tragedy from Bucharest that followed the fall of Ponta government and election of Ciolos government. He claims that all the elections are important, but these ones are very important for Romania.

In what concerns the direction of Romanian justice and his expectations from this system, Klemm reminds us that the former US ambassadors from the last 15-16 years, since the Michael Guest mandate, expressed their support in a thorough fight in Romania against corruption. Since he started to prepare for the ambassador position, he declares that he observed a more and more successful fight against corruption and that Romania founded a very strong Prosecutors Office, Anti-Corruption National Office (DNA) with the proper resources and a very good chief. In his view, Romania became leader in the fight against corruption and that other countries ask for assistance from Romania because of its success.

This is why he encourages the political parties to select the candidates that are not prosecuted for corruption.

However, he admits that in US there is also the presumption of innocence until it is proved the contrary and that there is also political corruption in US, there are many politicians found guilty of corruption. But he claims that these are issues that every country in the world confronts with. However, in US there is no restriction of candidate until someone is prosecuted, but the parties avoid any association with someone prosecuted for these acts.

The ambassador concludes that what US wishes for the entire Romania is a strong country, democratic and prosperous, without corruption that would develop rapidly economically, and would adopt entirely the democratic values and a democratic future with strong democratic institutions.

Georgiana Bendre