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President Iohannis has explained one more time in a press conference why he doesn’t accept a debate with the PSD presidential candidate, Viorica Dancila, while announcing he will organize a debate with journalists political analysts, influencers on Tuesday evening, where they should talk about his first mandate and about the plans for the next one. He also lobbied for early elections, saying they are ‘the best solution for the current situation.’
“I have proved in the past year that I know to fight against PSD and I’ve done it wisely. I have proved I know to stop PSD,” said the head of state, slamming the former ruling party for “trying to seize the judiciary, education and all public systems”, “for trying to nail down all their connections and relatives everywhere across public institutions”, and for attacking private companies”.
As for the debate, Iohannis argued he cannot legitimate PSD’s ‘miscreant behaviour’ by accepting a debate with the PSD candidate.
“Mrs. Viorica Dancila, former PM dismissed by censure motion, has been an active part of all PSD’s cons, has actively endorsed the attempts to seize the judiciary, has been very active to defend some people with legal problems, has been very active in ruling against Romanians. She is the representative of an anti-democratic party, which ruled against Romanians and who is now pretending she is a democratic candidate and she expects to be treated with great respect, as if she would have defended democracy so far. I won’t accept a debate with such a person who embodies the worst in the policy in the past years“, Iohannis explained.
On the other hand, the President announced that, together with his campaign staff will organise a debate on Tuesday evening, inviting political scientists, journalists, opinion formers to attend.
Asked by the journalist why did he had named Dancila as PM in the first place, Klaus Iohannis said he had no other solution at that time, admitting he was wrong and saying he is sorry for that.
“As a final result, I can only say that I am sorry, but at that time, let’s remember, it was a strong PSD majority in Parliament, PSD and ALDE had an undeniable majority. I have stated even since my campaign in 2014 that I will have another manner of doing politics, I will respect the political and constitutional customs. When a strong majority proposed a candidate who had no legal problems, who had no anti-democratic history that I should have known, I considered this person can be designated. I haven’t foreseen the further evolution and I think nobody in Romania has ever imagined things will go that way“.
The six houses case
Retorting to the PSD and to Dancila’s accusations regarding how he obtained the houses in his property, the head of state accused that Viorica Dancila, is “misinformed” on this topic, stating that he has no civil, nor criminal legal files.
“There is no vulnerability, but Mrs. Dancila is misinformed. I don’t know who is informing Mrs. Dancila. I don’t have any legal problems, neither in civil law, nor in criminal law. Besides, there are not six houses, but five. In the meantime, one was eliminated. This matter, this problem, appeared when I was in politics, in 2000. it was also PSD that fabricated this topic to use it in the electoral campaign. Do you image how creative PSD can be? Since 2000, they came out with this in every campaign. I believe people have understood in the meantime,” Iohannis said.
He underlined he had bought those houses “legally and honestly”.
“I don’t reproach myself for anything. I am an honest man. I bought them absolutely legally and honestly (…) I never had a criminal case in the sense of being criminally investigated neither for this, nor for anything else. I am not afraid at all. I have nothing to hide. Things are relatively clear and I don’t think we need to go over them again in detail. They were under discussion in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2014. I believe it’s enough,” Klaus Iohannis said.
About vacations
Asked how looks a normal working day at Cotroceni and where he was in vacation, Iohannis replied:
“A normal day of work looks different. Usually it starts on Monday and ends on Friday or Saturday, the day starts in the morning and sometimes ends at 6 p.m. or at midnight. It has been a pleasure one Saturday or Sunday to go to the mountains, to talk to the Romanians… I had three vacations overall. But even if I left, I worked, the president cannot have a total vacation, for his work cannot be taken over by anybody. When I was away I took my documents, folders and pens and I worked on the documents. I haven’t had any vacations in the past 2 yeas, because I stayed to keep Romania out of PSD’ s trouble”.
President proves he has no earphones
Bucharest mayor Gabriela Firea and former Health minister Florian Bodog, both from PSD, shared a photo on Facebook, claiming Klaus Iohannis had worn an earphone in his left ear during the press conference, however the photo that proved to be fake. Mayor Firea deleted the post on her page later on.
Klaus Iohannis was even asked during the press conference if he has such a earphone, if somebody is telling him what to say through the earphone. The President denied, “There is no earphone here, (in the right), or here (in the left). Do you suspect me it’s not working without cheat sheet? I don’t think you’d suspect me of such thing.”
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