USR's Barna: President Iohannis was a fireman coming to rescue a house already on fire

The USR PLUS Alliance's (Save Romania Union - Liberty, Unity, Solidarity Party) candidate for the presidential elections, Dan Barna, on Friday stated that President Klaus Iohannis was "a fireman who came to rescue every time that the house was already on fire and collapsing" while "Romania needs a full time president." 

"The advantage that I have in this competition is precisely the energy and capacity to represent the new generation that wants to get involved in Romania's salvation, for we cannot go on with the old political class, which was precisely the message that we received from thousands of people in all of Romania's counties. (...) Romania needs a full-time president, one who will be present in the citizens' lives every day. A five-year term in office is a long term. We can all see where we are at right now, the situation we are in today. And if we continue like this, maybe we won't make steps backwards, but we will stagnate. But Romania needs to move on, to develop, this is my proposal, and the USR-PLUS Alliance has the exact energy, will and ambition to move on, to stop playing the same old foolish games we kept playing for the past 30 years. (...) President Iohannis was a fireman who came to rescue every time when the house was already on fire and collapsing. But I believe that, if he were a more careful manager, and more diligent, maybe we could have avoided seeing the house on fire so many times as we did in the past couple of years," said Barna, after he submitted his candidacy for the presidential elections with the Central Electoral Bureau. 

He has also said he is certain he will enter the second round of the elections and he will win. 

"I am very optimistic that Romanians will choose wisely what type of Romania we want to have further, for these elections are about choosing between remaining to fight the same incertitude we have been fighting for the past 30 years and giving a chance to a new generation, that generation of young people a society asks for and waits for to get involved and make this step of entering politics. What the USR-PLUS Alliance did was to bring thousands of people in politics (...) The old political class and the current structure, President Iohannis, PNL (National Liberal Party), always tell us that it doesn't get any better than now. But we can say that we can do better today and Romania deserves this," said Barna. 

He specified he will participate in any debate with President Iohannis and the PSD (Social Democratic Party) candidate, Viorica Dancila. 

"The next government will be a USR-PLUS government," said Barna. 

According to him, there were approximately 400,000 signatures submitted in support of his candidacy. He was accompanied to the BEC headquarters by former Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos and several supporters.