{"id":5457,"date":"2025-06-13T12:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T12:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/?p=5457"},"modified":"2025-06-13T12:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T12:07:09","slug":"timisoara-mayor-dominic-fritz-wins-race-to-head-romanias-reformist-party-usr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/?p=5457","title":{"rendered":"Timi\u0219oara mayor Dominic Fritz wins race to head Romania\u2019s reformist party USR"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mayor of Timi\u0219oara, Dominic Fritz<\/strong>, will be the new leader of the Save Romania Union party, or USR, after he received 67.2% of the votes in an internal race.<\/p>\n

The vote for the new party president was conducted online and started Wednesday at 10 AM and ended Friday at noon. A total of 10,914 members voted, representing 57.15% of the total. As Dominic Fritz obtained more than half of the votes in the first round, there is no need to organize a second round.<\/p>\n

USR senator Violeta Alexandru ranked second in the internal race for USR leadership, according to HotNews<\/a> sources, with 22% of the votes. A former PNL member and minister, she joined USR at the end of August 2024, about 10 months ago.<\/p>\n

Next, the party will hold a congress which will validate the new president.<\/p>\n

A German national, Dominic Fritz first came to Timisoara as a volunteer<\/a> in 2003, when he was 19. Now 41, he launched his bid<\/a> for party leadership last month, proposing a \u201cstrategic reset of USR.\u201d He also proposed changing the party’s doctrine from \u201cmodern center-right,\u201d as it currently stands, to \u201ccenter,\u201d following the line set by USR founder and now president Nicusor Dan.<\/p>\n

Dominic Fritz is the sixth USR president in nine years, after Nicu\u0219or Dan, Dan Barna, Dacian Ciolo\u0219, C\u0103t\u0103lin Drul\u0103, and Elena Lasconi.<\/p>\n

In the press conference held after the results were announced, Fritz came out against naming a technocratic prime minister as part of the ongoing talks to form a government. He maintained that USR\u2019s proposal for the prime minister position remains the leader of the National Liberal Party, Ilie Bolojan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not something that should worry us, the fact that negotiations for a government are taking three weeks. There are partners with different visions, we need to reach a consensus, not build a government hastily. We need a stable government; the fact that negotiations are taking longer is not a bad sign,\u201d Fritz said when asked about governance.<\/p>\n

He also excluded a USR merger with PNL, saying these were speculation. \u201cThe mission is to reconnect with our allies, with our voters. I will be a president who opens the party,\u201d he assured, making a call for people to join USR.<\/p>\n

He also said he will remain the mayor of Timi\u0219oara.\u00a0<\/p>\n

radu@romania-insider.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

(Photo source: Inquam Photos | Cornel Putan)<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mayor of Timi\u0219oara, Dominic Fritz, will be the new leader of the Save Romania Union party, or USR, after he received 67.2% of the votes in an internal race. The vote for the new party president was conducted online and started Wednesday at 10 AM and ended Friday at noon. A total of 10,914 […]<\/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-5457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5457","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=5457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofero.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}