President Klaus Iohannis, Photo: Inquam Photos / George Călin
Two rounds of crucial elections have come, which will define the direction in which Romania will go in the coming years, said President Klaus Iohannis, in a speech delivered on Saturday in Cotroceni. “We are facing an existential decision. And we have to choose: democracy and the fundamental values that have guided us as a modern European nation, or isolationism, extremist mysticism and hatred of Western pluralism,” he said.
It is the first public speech of Klaus Iohannis since the first round of the presidential elections, being supported at the reception organized by the Presidential Administration at the Cotroceni Palace, on the occasion of the National Day.
Statements by Klaus Iohannis:
- “This year has been an electoral burden. There are two more rounds of elections, parliamentary and presidential, crucial moments that will define, more than in other elections in the past, the direction in which Romania will go in the years to come over.
- However, the results of the vote a week ago brought us to a new moment of balance. Tomorrow’s elections and the ones that follow will not be all about left, right or center politics and opinions. We are not voting to punish or reward anyone, we are voting to remain a country of freedom and openness or to collapse into toxic isolation and a dark past.
- We are facing an existential decision. And we have to choose between them. On the one hand, democracy and the fundamental values that have guided us as a modern European nation, and on the other, isolationism, extremist mysticism and hatred of Western pluralism.
- Tomorrow’s parliamentary elections are very important, since the newly elected president, however well-intentioned, can only appoint that prime minister who manages to coagulate a majority in Parliament.
- And the way you see this majority and, implicitly, the future Government, depends directly on your vote tomorrow.
- I know that after the events of the last days, you feel that you are losing faith in the institutions of the State, in the power and legitimacy of the vote, which is the essence of democracy.
- That is why I appeal to all the authorities involved in the management of the electoral process and in the validation of the polls not to forget that, above all, it is imperative that the electoral results, whatever they are, enjoy credibility and reflect really the option and the will of the citizens.
- Dear Romanians, every vote counts and every citizen has an essential role in shaping the future of our country.
- We elect not only the people to represent us, but also the values and the direction we want to go as a nation.
- Romania must strengthen its indisputable orientation towards European and North Atlantic values. It is a course that we have undertaken and that we have achieved with great sacrifices, through painful transitions.
- We must not forget that voting is a right that our fellow citizens fought for, some paid with their blood, 35 years ago.
- In an era where we see an alarming growth of extremism, populism and disinformation, it is even more important to firmly reject, by voting in the first place, the false pacifying speech that actually hides an anti-European vision. The politicians who embrace these approaches want to divide, to create social ruptures and deep wounds, that is to say a society in total opposition to the one that was able to reach the Great Union in 1918.
- There are no perfect politicians, no messianic figures who possess miraculous solutions to citizens’ problems. Those who claim to have, sooner or later, will make Romania from its deep democratic path. And this means for all of us less freedom, more suffering, deprivation and the loss of the rights that are now guaranteed”.
