“It was a clear signal that democracy in Romania is strong”, said Marcel Ciolacuat 21.00, after the publication of the first exit polls, which showed him in first place in the battle for the second round of the presidential elections. Then the vote counting effect began.
There was no emotion at the PSD campaign headquarters. The 1st place of the 1st round was almost guaranteed, from the polls, from the status of a large party. At 5 p.m., Marcel Ciolacu appeared before the journalists and made his first statements about the elections. Asked if the atmosphere at the campaign headquarters is relaxed, the prime minister replied, smiling: “You really can't tell from me?”.
He was restrained in his statements and said each time that he was waiting for the results of the elections before talking about possible counter-candidates in the second round.
“Since the summer, I've been saying who will come in at number 2”
At a second official statement for the press, almost two hours before the polls closed, Ciolacu came accompanied by Mihai Tudose and Sorin Grindeanu. They said all three had known since the summer who his opponent would be in the second round. The result “confirms itself”, he said.
Asked about the popularity of Călin Georgescu, who outranked him late last night, according to the partial results, he said that it is not a surprise: “It is the result of this campaign, in which the Romanians looked for a better alternative for them”.
After he claimed that the other candidates campaigned by attacking his family, a journalist asked him what kind of attack it was. The Prime Minister angrily retorted “Are you really laughing at me?”, then walked away without answering any more questions.
Ciolacu, surrounded by dozens of men and a woman
Five minutes before the announcement of the first exit polls, Marcel Ciolacu left the building on Kiseleff, with more than 20 men following him. Some were singing the lines from Queen's famous song, “We are the champions”.
On the stage for statements, he was surrounded by the same number of men and only one woman. After the exit polls showed Ciolacu in the second round, he announced that he was willing to talk to the other candidates to take over the proposals in their programs.
“As for the result, one thing is extremely clear: behind the result of each candidate are Romanians, regardless of their political option and I will take into account the opinion of the Romanians and I will have to talk to each candidate to collect all the good proposals from their electoral programs. I ran a hate-free campaign and I will continue in the 2nd round in the same way,” said the Prime Minister. It's 1 am and the votes are still being counted. At 82% of the votes counted, Ciolacu was overtaken by Georgescu and maintains a lead of 330,000 votes over Lasconi. There are still 1.7 million votes to be counted. The champions must wait for the morning.
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