The former deputy secretary general of NATO, Mircea Geoan\u0103, officially announced on Wednesday, September 11, a day after the end of his mandate at NATO, that he will run for president of Romania.<\/p>\n
“I am running for president because I know we need real change! I could have promised you a perfect country. I could have posed as the perfect politician and told you that all the problems would disappear overnight. But we all know that’s not reality. We are not perfect. I am not perfect. But you know what we can do? We can work. We can roll up our sleeves and build a better country,” Geoan\u0103 says in his presidential campaign video.<\/p>\n\n
Banners with the former NATO official, now an independent candidate for the presidency, have already appeared across Bucharest (opening photo)<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mircea Geoan\u0103 previously ran for president in\u00a02009,\u00a0with the backing of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which he headed. Back then, he was defeated by the then-incumbent president, Traian B\u0103sescu. He was expelled by his party, notorious for its short patience with defeated leaders, shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n This time, Mircea Geoan\u0103 postponed the launch of his candidacy for the presidential elections, although, in recent weeks, he has been on a national and international tour. During the tour, he promoted himself alongside his book,\u00a0The Battle for Romania’s Future<\/em>.\u00a0Thoughts of a Romanian at the Top of NATO<\/em>.<\/p>\n The former NATO official joins a tight race for the Romanian presidency, although he has long been featured in surveys, where he was shown to be among the top, if not the top candidate.<\/p>\n At the moment, Mircea Geoan\u0103 is credited with 21% in voting intention, followed by PSD leader and PM Marcel Ciolacu, with 17.2%. In third place is the leader of the opposition and reformist center-right party USR, Elena Lasconi, with 15.3%. Far-right AUR leader George Simion is in fourth with 14%, followed by another far-right leader, MEP Diana \u0218o\u0219oac\u0103, with 13.9%, according to a recent survey cited by\u00a0Libertatea<\/a>.<\/p>\n radu@romania-insider.com<\/em><\/p>\n (Photo source: Inquam Photos\/George Calin)<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The former deputy secretary general of NATO, Mircea Geoan\u0103, officially announced on Wednesday, September 11, a day after the end of his mandate at NATO, that he will run for president of Romania. “I am running for president because I know we need real change! I could have promised you a perfect country. I could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}