The liberal candidate for Voluntari City Hall, Florin Secara, accuses Mayor Florentin Pandele and Gabriela Firea of trying to mislead not only the Voluntari citizens but also the citizens of Bucharest, by saying that he would run as independent. Pandele was excluded from the Social-democratic Party (PSD) by his wife Gabriela Firea, PSD Ilfov leader, having Voluntari under her authority.
“As you know, the mayor of Voluntari, Florentin Pandele, is trying to mislead the people of the city and says he wants to run for mayor as independent, although until recently he was a PSD member,” Secara said according to News.ro.
According to the law, a mayor loses his mandate if he resigns from the party, but he keeps the mandate if excluded from the party. In order to run as independent in the local election, Pandele found a very ingenious solution: as member of PSD Ilfov, an organization led by his wife, Gabriela Firea, she has expelled her husband from the party!
Florentin Pandele announced on April 26 that he decided to run for a new term at Voluntari City Hall as independent.
Florentin Pandele, 55, is the husband of Gabriela Firea (the PSD candidate for Bucharest City Hall) and is, since 2000, city mayor of Voluntari (near Bucharest). In 2004 he was elected mayor in the first round, with a percentage of 84.5%, and in 2008 as well also in the first round of elections, with 91.27% of votes.