Former Olympic swimming champions David Popovici and Diana Mocanu appeared in a spot distributed by PSD Bucharest and marked “political advertising material”. The elections for the position of mayor of the Capital will take place on December 7, and the PSD has entered Daniel Băluță in the race.
David Popovici is angry with politicians
In the political promotion clip of Daniel Băluță, the current mayor of Sector 4, PSD added video fragments in which Diana and David appear.
The message was shared on several platforms, including the PSD official account. On Facebook, the clip was deleted today.
“The presence of the two athletes in the spot was an error by the editing colleagues, from PSD, they did not realize“, explained one of Daniel Băluță’s campaign officials for golazo.ro.
The athletes stated that they were neither asked nor consented to this association, a fact confirmed by David’s communications PR, Lavinia Chican. Daniel Băluță’s campaign staff apologized for the blunder and promised to remove the illegal passages.
He is not the first politician to try to associate his image with that of a champion before a round of elections.
In the past, Călin Georgescu, candidate for the presidential elections, used the image of athletes such as Nadia Comăneci, Gică Hagi and Ivan Patazichin.
He also did not have the consent of those or their descendants (the case of the former canoeist, who died on September 5, 2021). Like Băluță, Georgescu apologized for intellectual theft.
