#PresidentialElections2019/ Diaconu: Cotroceni is a royal palace, not suitable for presidency

Independent presidential candidate Mircea Diaconu, supported by Pro Romania and ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats), stated on Tuesday in Timisoara that, if he becomes President, he won't stay at the Cotroceni Palace, not even for an hour, and that he will ask Government to find him another headquarters instead.

"I won't go to Cotroceni. I don't know where I'll go, but not there. I will not stay at Cotroceni, not even for an hour. Is this the mandate of Cotroceni? No, it is our nation's. Cotroceni is a palace. I refuse to go to Cotroceni. I will ask the Romanian Government at that moment to find me a different headquarters, for the Cotroceni Palace, in my opinion, is a royal palace that has a precise destination specified in a royal will and it's not suitable for presidency, in any way. A royal palace cannot be the right place for the presidency," said Mircea Diaconu.

In a different line of thoughts, he said that the list includes many priorities, among which the essential one is his attempt to explain the fundamental institutions of the state, "based on the laws, we need to clarify which are the responsibilities, the limits and borders of such responsibilities."

"We are in a situation today where institutions' responsibilities overlap and nobody knows where is the border between these responsibilities. (...) The main things, if you ask me, is to observe the laws, which means the rule of law. We observe what's written, starting with the Constitution. There will always be someone who will say Constitution is bad and we must change it. But Constitutions needs to be observed as it is, as long as it is in force, and the President needs to guarantee that the Constitution is being applied," added Diaconu.

He also said the President should be non-affiliated and non-political and that the fact that, in the past decades, Romania only had presidents who intervened to change ministers and prime ministers.

"Unfortunately, all of them have been the same, including today the crisis we are facing is the work of our president [Klaus Iohannis - editor's note] (...) The President has the obligation, the same as the judges, not to decide, not to pressure, nut to force a political crisis, but to be a mediator," concluded Mircea Diaconu.