Romania TV and Antena 3 broadcast transcripts of some audio recordings in which Marian Vanghelie talks to PSD deputy Radu Cristescu about Mircea Geoană on Friday evening.
Mircea Geoană and Marian Vanghelie have old ties PHOTO: Archive
On Friday evening, the two television stations presented the transcripts of an audio recording in which the former mayor of Sector 5, Marian Vanghelie, talks to PSD deputy Radu Cristescu about supporting Geoană in the presidential election.
Vanghelie mentions that she has collected 200,000 signatures and calls for Ecaterina Andronescu to be involved as well, who even if she is a “grandmother”, brings “some university professor’s rhetoric”.
From the recordings, one can see Vanghelie’s colorful language, but also the fact that he wants to force his re-entry into the PSD.
“M. VANGHELIE: PSD the party… But we, the party, independent Geoană: “We support Mircea Geoană as a candidate.”
R. CRISTESCU: I understand.
M. VANGHELIE: Well, if they are all his colleagues, how can they not support him?
R. CRISTESCU: And then Diaconescu until the 4th retires and says: “Sir, I retire.”
M. VANGHELIE: We need Androneasca.
R. CRISTESCU: Clearly, obviously, I do not dispute.
M. VANGHELIE: I want to say that Geoana is also (?) at the university. They went, Apostolache, when there were those ten parliamentarians.
R. CRISTESCU: Another nonsense.
M. VANGHELIE: They went there. Now, is it known what they did?
C.RĂDULESCU: But how does it help us?
R. CRISTESCU: It has a name.
M. VANGHELIE: Image.
C.RĂDULESCU: Wait, what does she help us with?
M. VANGHELIE: He also brings some university professor rhetoric.
C. RADULESCU: Bringing?!
M. VANGHELIE: Bring, bring. He spoke with Cristi on the phone, he spoke with Geoana on the phone. Baba is good!” (…)
M. VANGHELIE: I also give Mircea what he wants. That Mircea is afraid to cling strongly to me with the watches. He went with them, I did nothing. But I got over him. That I, and if I remain angry: who does he have? Who is he pushing? I know all his faults, his, his wife’s, and his mother-in-law’s. Everyone’s. 6 makes 2. Who do you work with? What are you doing with Ciolacu? (…)
M. VANGHELIE: Everyone has relations with Geoana. Nobody has my relations. And I’m not the other way around. If I wanted to register, he was now in Tenerife, he was not arrested, but he was no longer a candidate.
R. CRISTESCU: Who?
M. VANGHELIE: Geoana. They were crazy to write about him, anything, anything! Whatever they told me. I did 4 months and 6 days at home. So he knows very well. What he doesn’t know: (whispers: it’s very big…?) The rest here…
M. VANGHELIE: Man, even the devil doesn’t know Geoana, I know what he has in cr
M. VANGHELIE: That is how our Gionica is. So once again, I’m taking you down now to see how many signatures I’ve collected. I have mine, 200,000, see how many.
M. VANGHELIE: If it wasn’t the problem with the watches, to speak directly.
R. CRISTESCU: Damn the watches!
M.VANGHELIE: He took them, that I didn’t write anything, that he knows now. He gave them back. I proposed two more people next to me and I took 20% of the PSD with Geoana. And now I don’t want it to happen, God forbid, and there are 300 from External.
Contacted by phone, Marian Vanghelie told Antena 3 that the audio files were digitally processed and that the signatures he spoke of were for his party, the Independent Social Democratic Party of Romania (PSDI), denying the campaign for Geoană.
Mircea Geoană declared on Antena 3 that “I haven’t had any contact with Marian Vanghelie for 12 years”.
However, the two launched a party in 2015, called the New Social Democratic Project.
Also in 2015, Mircea Geoană presented himself at DNA, being cited in Marian Vanghelie’s file. The prosecutors called him to officially inform him that they had seized 3 watches that he allegedly received as a gift from Marian Vanghelie.
According to DNA, the former mayor would have bought the watches from the money received from the businessman Marin Dumitru. Geoana explained to the court that the three watches are not bribes, but simple gifts: “They were not the subject of any discussion with him, he offered them to me as a colleague, without any political or administrative connection. I received them on the occasion of the second name day, mine and my wife’s, and another anniversary. I don’t know anything about their origin”.
The former mayor of Sector 5, Marian Vanghelie, was sentenced, in 2021, by the Bucharest Court, to 11 years and 8 months in prison, in a case in which he was sent to court by the DNA for committing nine crimes of bribery and abuse of office and seven crimes of money laundering. The decision is not final.
