Popular Movement MP Elena Udrea, former minister and party president, has stated that there are politicians who help themselves to the money received as campaigns contributions and revealed that certain ambassadors lobbied her in favour of companies from their countries.
“We are entering an elections year and, instead of modifying the rules, the campaigns will be financed just as before. Still with bags of cash, how else? A campaign costs millions of Euros. Do you think politicians have this money at home? Maybe some do, those who helped themselves to campaign contributions… There are two types of politicians: some who take the campaign contributions to their parties, and some who take them home. Those who took them home are just fine, nobody asks them anything. If we continue to be hypocritical and not admit that we have a problem that has been going on for 26 years and in which not only the political class but also society as a whole is involved, and if we do not change the rules, we will accomplish nothing. I ask the citizens that are appalled by the amount of money used in the campaigns to open their wardrobe. They will find umbrellas labelled PSD, PNL or PDL. And it’s just one example,” Elena Udrea stated on Romania TV.
Moreover, she also offered an order of magnitude of the sums used in elections campaigns.
“As a person who has led, has conducted campaigns, I can say a large part of the campaign funds end up in the press, but dozens of millions go to the citizens too,” the former Development Minister stated.
In this context, Elena Udrea also talked about the influence peddling accusations brought against officials if they back the interests of Romanian companies, deeming them unfair.
“There are cases in courts in which ambassadors intervened for certain contracts. You don’t necessarily have to receive a bag of cash in order to be accused of influence peddling. If you intervene for a company, that’s influence peddling. (…) Ambassadors came to me to support companies from their countries. (…) Romanian businessmen no longer have a lot of opportunities to do business in Romania, almost all construction companies have closed or almost all have criminal case files. (…) If someone were to protect a Romanian company at the expense of a foreign one, he would end up in jail. I’ve recently seen pictures showing Ovidiu Tender at a party thrown by an ambassador who lectured Romania on morality and support for anticorruption,” Elena Udrea stated, without giving any other details.
