The start of the electoral campaign for the December 7 partial elections comes to the Capital amid attacks between the candidates. The campaign for the Bucharest City Hall is generally a fiercer one, but in the current context, as it is about partial elections, public attention is maximized.
Four candidates stand out in the measurements for Bucharest PHOTO Collage Facebook
The election campaign for the December 7 by-election started on November 22 and will end on December 6 at 7:00 am, being an atypical, shorter than usual one. The intensity of the attacks in the midst of which this period begins, however, suggests that the two weeks will be enough to generate major tensions not only between candidates, but also between parties, some of which launched a candidate in the race being in a coalition at the helm of the state.
The elections on December 7 will be held in a single round, and the one who gets the most votes will become the new general mayor of the Capital, for a term that will last until 2028.
The poll war
The most heated conflict broke out between the two right-wing candidates of the governing coalition parties, Cătălin Drula (USR) and Ciprian Ciucu (PNL). The USR candidate has accused poll manipulation and threats from governing colleagues after the latest poll data put him in 4th place, 13-15 percent behind his Liberal opponent.
Cătălin Drula said that he would have received the message “we’ll kill you with the polls” a month before, immediately after the announcement of the elections, comparing the current “strategy” with the tactics used against Nicușor Dan in the 2016 and 2024 campaigns.
Campaign costs, “ammunition” between candidates
The electoral struggle is, in fact, taking place on several levels, both directly and through associational elements, and each competitor uses the ammunition he has. After the revelations of a journalistic investigation by SNOOP regarding the costs of a previous AUR campaign and the money paid to the television station where Anca Alexandrescu works, the candidate recalled the data indicated by the same publication in an investigation regarding the constructions of the campaign of Nicușor Dan at the time.
Alexandrescu also went to the Capital City Hall, over the current administration, led by the interim general mayor, the liberal Stelian Bujduveanu.
Increased attention on the election campaign in the Capital
Valeriu Turcan, former presidential adviser, points out that the current campaign is one “at stake for many political actors and for many party groups, from those who want to win the fight from within, to those who want to get their hands on Bucharest’s money“. At the same time, given the unusually short period, specific to partial elections, “it’s also a campaign that attracts a lot of attention and because it doesn’t get lost in a sea of campaigns, the elections will only be in a few places in the country. In other words, this context exposes every campaign gesture to the maximum”.
“In general, before the election campaigns, a significant part of the voters who are determined to go to the polls already know who they will vote for. Now it is a special situation because we are talking about some partial elections that did not necessarily have a previous context to prepare them. Some partial elections in which the candidates were announced quite late.
Three months ago we did not know who the candidates for this competition were, nor did we know when this competition would be, when the voting would take place. Consequently, it is a somewhat unusual situation. One in which the campaign, even if very short, may matter more than usual. It is possible, especially in this context of a very close election, as the opinion polls show, it is very possible that this campaign will be decisive. More than likely, it will be decisive”explains the political consultant Adrian Zăbău.
The “noise” of the candidates comes mainly because of the stakes, but also because we have an “extremely politicized” competition, points out political consultant Adrian Zăbava: “Candidates try to make themselves seen, gain notoriety, trust and subsequently vote intention, mainly through the messages they send, which, in order to be visible, must also be strong.”
The stakes of the candidates from Bucharest
More than 1.8 million Bucharesters are called to the polls to decide who will lead the city for the next three years, in a context marked by mutual accusations, poll wars and tensions between the ruling coalition parties. Thus, the campaign from Bucharest “it is the second, most important electoral campaign for a position in Romania”, emphasizes the political consultant. But the stakes are not limited to the position a candidate can win.
Every candidate’s situation is different. “Cătălin Drula’s main stake in these two weeks is to show that he can have a chance to win”hence the power of the USR attack on the data that positions it at the tail of the ranking of the main candidates, explains Adrian Zăbava. At the same time, the attack launched by Anca Alexandrescu against Nicușor Dan combats the data that can discredit her in this electoral race.
“The vote confers political legitimacy on the winner and the party he represents, if applicable. It is a test of the capacity for political traction and can also function as a test of the capacity to mobilize. In the mirror, it can also be interpreted as a vote of blame, as an expression of dissatisfaction with one political actor or another. The capital has always had the potential to transmit a political message to the territory, if we look at history, the dominant message, of change or of dissatisfaction radiated from the Capital and to other elections, especially when they took place in other important county seats, but now we don’t have local elections everywhere. At the end of this election, after some very visible elections, the result will communicate a certain hierarchy of political preferences, without it being valid for the national elections. It would be a big mistake for some to think that the political distribution from Bucharest will be valid for the whole country.”says former Valeriu Turcan.
The fight between the contenders started a long time ago. But “we are only at the beginning of the campaign, the parties and candidates will bring out their best, the heavy artillery, towards the end of the campaign. So we can expect increasingly harsh gestures. Not necessarily efficient and maybe sometimes downright desperate”the former presidential adviser points out.
