Former Bucharest mayor Gabriela Firea and energy minister Sebastian Burduja entered the race for the Bucharest mayor seat after the governing coalition withdrew its shared candidate, a move further fragmenting the race and raising questions over how the two parties currently in power will approach the presidential elections.

The plans of the governing coalition, made up of the Social Democrat Party (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL), to have a shared candidate for the Bucharest mayor job were scrapped last week as Cătălin Cîrstoiu was withdrawn from the electoral race seven weeks before the local elections scheduled for June 9, the same day as the EU Parliament elections.

PSD and PNL initially announced a joint effort for the EU Parliament election and planned to have shared candidates in Bucharest and in several larger cities in the country, mainly the ones where they have to face the Save Romania Union, the main opposition party. However, the media reports about his private sector practice conflicting with his position as manager of one of Bucharest's largest hospitals have led the two parties to reconsider their decision after a marathon, more than 10-hour-long meeting.

Cîrstoiu's electoral bid was announced only a month ago, and he had yet to submit his official candidacy to the Electoral Bureau. His withdrawal came after reports showed he had directed patients from the Bucharest University Hospital (SUUB), where he is the manager, to the private clinic owned by his wife and where he also practices. Among other reports, Hotnews.ro published the testimony of a former patient of doctor Cîrstoiu, showing she was operated on at the public hospital while various other tests and follow-up procedures were carried out at the private clinic. It also published a 2020 report of the PM's audit office signaling a conflict of interest in the doctor's case.

Cîrstoiu argued he saw no incompatibility between running a public hospital and practicing at private hospitals and said it would be up to the National Integrity Agency (ANI) to issue an opinion on this. In a press conference on April 19, he said that the emergency ordinance banning managers from practicing outside the hospitals they run only created chaos and that he offered consultations at the private clinic to help patients and fellow doctors who needed his expertise. At the same time, without the support of PSD and PNL he would not be able to stay in the race, he said.

Recent polls had shown Cîrstoiu in third place, behind incumbent Nicușor Dan, running as an independent supported by the United Right Alliance (ADU), and the candidate of the Social Liberal Humanist Party (PUSL), Cristian Popescu Piedone, currently the mayor of Bucharest's District 5.

Cîrstoiu, who heads SUUB's Orthopedics and Trauma I department and is the dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Bucharest's Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, has had no previous political activity prior to being announced as PSD and PNL's candidate for the Bucharest mayor job. 

The media spotlight on his practice in the private sector touched on the broader, sore topic of access to healthcare and the state of the public healthcare system. The public healthcare system can be accessed under national health insurance, offered to almost all citizens, but the hospitals in the public sector are often aged and have seen few investments in buildings or equipment. Most investments were made in the private sector, which has developed especially in larger cities. For those with lower incomes or living in rural areas this can be difficult to access. Three regional hospitals in the public sector are currently planned, and the contracts for preliminary works at the construction sites for two of the three were signed this February. 

An apology and a request

After the news of Cîrstoiu's withdrawal broke, Ciolacu apologized to the doctor "for everything he went through" and praised him as "an exceptional doctor in a very difficult field, a man who built his career through work and studies." He also expressed dismay at how he went from the respectable position of dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest to "bin Laden – without killing anyone, on the contrary, saving lives." He also likened Cîrstoiu's case to that of Firea and the "horror care homes" and argued that the "attacks on him were first of all against this electoral alliance."

The PSD leader said he was convinced Firea would be elected to a new term and argued it would have been "ridiculous" for the two largest parties in the country to not be players in the election, each with their own candidates.

At the same time, he launched a request to PUSL candidate Cristian Popescu Piedone to withdraw from the race, something the latter declined to do. In her turn, Gabriela Firea also argued that Piedone should withdraw from the race. She told Digi24 that this would be the "normal" thing to do since he said he would do so if she ran.

The PSD and PNL candidates 

Both Firea and Burduja declared their interest in running for the Bucharest mayor job long before the coalition decided to come up with Cătălin Cîrstoiu as candidate. For a month, they had to contend with being in charge of Cîrstoiu's campaign until they were ushered back as candidates of their own parties, which agreed not to attack one another during the campaign. Firea is also on PSD's list of candidates for the EU Parliament elections, with high chances of holding a MEP seat if her mayoral bid doesn't work out.

A former journalist, Gabriela Firea was elected the first female mayor of Bucharest in 2016, defeating Nicușor Dan, backed by the Save Bucharest Union, and PNL's Cătălin Predoiu. She faced Dan again and lost to him in the 2020 elections. She has been a member of PSD since 2012 and now heads the party's Bucharest organization. Before being elected mayor of Bucharest, she was a senator for the Ilfov district, and a spokesperson for the party. She also served as the minister of Family in the governments of Nicolae Ciucă and Marcel Ciolacu from 2021 to July 2023, when she resigned following the scandal of the care homes for the elderly, where an investigation revealed inhumane conditions and abuses at care homes for the elderly in Bucharest and the nearby counties. She denied any involvement in the case, but the media reports that showed connections between her and the owner of the homes stuck. Days before the announcement that PSD and PNL will break off the coalition for the local elections, PSD leader Marcel Ciolacu argued during a visit at the PSD Argeș organization that Firea had nothing to do with the "the horror care homes," as they became known, and that everything was a premediated attack. 

After being appointed the PSD candidate, Firea said she was entering the electoral race "with an optimistic mindset" and that she wanted to convince the Bucharest residents that the social-democrat team was "the right solution" for the capital. Before that, they have the record of her mandate as mayor, when she granted numerous vouchers – for bike acquisitions, in-vitro fertilization or Covid-19 patients who donated plasma, among others – and helped fund the building of the People's Redemption Cathedral. During her mandate, the Bucharest City Hall decided to set up more than 20 companies to handle various public utility activities that had been previously delegated to private companies or departments within the city hall. A Bucharest Court of Appeal decision annulled in 2018 the decision through which these were established, but some of them continued to run following a decision of the city's General Council. By 2020, the municipal companies had cumulated debts of more than RON 560 million to various providers, the tax authority ANAF, or to the social securities budget, a Hotnews.ro analysis showed.

Educated at Stanford, where he earned a degree in comparative politics, and at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Sebastian Burduja entered public life in 2009, when he established the League of the Romanian Students Abroad (LSRS), and organization supporting Romanian students pursuing their studies outside of the country. In 2011, he established the CAESAR Foundation, which aimed to research pathways for Romania's development. He then went on to work for the World Bank and the investment company RISE Consortium. 

In 2019, he joined PNL and was elected president of the party's District 1 organization in Bucharest. The same year, he was appointed a state secretary with the Finance Ministry and, a year later, was elected to the Deputies Chamber of the Romanian Parliament on the PNL lists. In May 2022, he took over as minister of digitalization, a portfolio he held when the Government launched the AI honorary advisor ION, a bot developed by Romanian researchers. In June 2023, he was appointed energy minister, a mandate where his stated priority was the energy transition. At the end of last year, he was also appointed president of PNL's Bucharest organization.

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(Photo: CarolRobert | Dreamstime.com)

simona@romania-insider.com