Presidential candidate and erstwhile Prime MinisterRomania Victor Ponta sparked a scandal after admitting that he had allowed respective villages over the Danube to flood in 2014 to avoid flooding the Serbian capital of Belgrade.
Ponta informedin the Wednesday podcast that more than 10 years ago, erstwhile he was Prime Minister, he ordered the beginning of the floodgates on the Danube between Romania and Serbia – despite the opposition of the Romanian authorities – to save Belgrade from the flood. According to the Romanian public radio study at the time, the flood affected 4 Romanian villages and 1,500 hectares of fields and forests.
“As a result, the Belgrade Parliament gave me the honorary citizenship of Serbia,” Ponta said and added, “I like Belgrade and I like Serbia very much.”
Some fresh polls indicate that Ponta will take second place in the first circular of the presidential election, following the far right candidate George Simion.
His admission to favoring the Serbian capital at the expense of Romanian villages provoked criticism from erstwhile colleagues from the Social Democrats, including Prime Minister Marcel Ciolac.
“By no means does anyone believe you are a sovereign anymoreand that you could die fighting side by side with everyone for your people and your country”, wrote Ciolac to Ponta on Facebook, calling his erstwhile partymate to resignpresidential race.
The Social Democratic organization supports Crina Antonescu's current campaign, together with the National-Liberal organization led by Antonescu, and the Hungarian number organization – the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania.
Mayor of Bucharest Nicușor Dan, who competes in the electionas PresidentIndependent candidate, called on Ciolacu to print and declassified all papers related to Ponta's flood decisions in 2014.
Source: Politico
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