Presidential candidate and former Prime Minister Victor Ponta is facing criticism after claiming he flooded Romanian villages to save Belgrade in 2014, Romanian media report.
According to the media, former Prime Minister Victor Ponta, who is currently running for president as an independent candidate with an isolationist agenda, claimed that in his capacity as head of government in 2014, he prevented the flooding of Belgrade by opening the Iron Gates dam so that several Romanian villages would be flooded instead of the Serbian capital.
He stated that the government paid compensation for the damages on Romanian territory and assured that no one was endangered during the operation.
For this, Serbia granted him citizenship, Ponta claimed in a podcast aired on April 9 by the daily Evenimentul Zilei, according to Romania Insider, as reported by Danas.
“No Romanian in Romania was in danger, no household was seriously affected – but we saved hundreds, maybe even thousands of lives in Serbia, members of a neighboring nation that loves Romanians,” wrote Victor Ponta on Facebook.
Hidroelectrica, the Romanian energy company, stated that the Iron Gates dam on the Danube operated in May 2014 in accordance with the provisions of the Romanian-Serbian Convention.
The operation of the Iron Gates I and Iron Gates II Hydropower and Navigation Systems (SHEN), from May 18 to 26, 2014, when the Danube flows reached values of over 11,500 cubic meters/s, which is a situation foreseen by Romanian-Serbian documents, was carried out fully in accordance with the provisions of the 1998 Operating Convention and the Regulations of the Joint Dispatch Service for Energy, Hidroelectrica said on Thursday, reported Romania Journal.
According to Romania Insider, the direct beneficiaries of Ponta’s unexpected statements are far-right presidential candidate George Simion (Ponta’s rival and leading candidate in the May 4 and 18 elections), as well as the ruling coalition candidate Crin Antonescu, who also shares part of the electorate with Ponta and hopes to make it to the second round of voting.
It remains unclear, the report states, why Victor Ponta chose to make such statements. Officially, he explained it as the reason he received Serbian citizenship. However, the cost of revealing this information, both for the elections and politically, is very high.
Ponta is now losing ground among his nationalist voter base in favor of his rival George Simion, the outlet writes. Moreover, all other presidential candidates have attacked him on this issue.
G4Media and Info Sud-Est conducted surveys on dozens of TikTok and Facebook pages followed by supporters of EU skeptic Călin Georgescu – who is still considered the spiritual leader of the isolationist movement, even though he is not running in the presidential election – and concluded that Victor Ponta is quickly losing ground.
Following Ponta’s claims about preventing the flooding of Belgrade at the cost of several Romanian villages, Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu appealed to Ponta to withdraw from the presidential race.
“As a prime minister, you often have to make tough decisions. But they should never be kept secret. An unhesitating confession, years later, that as Romania’s prime minister you agreed to flood Romanian villages to protect foreign cities and that you’re proud to have received the citizenship of another country in return, makes you everything but a sovereigntist!” Prime Minister Ciolacu stated in a Facebook post.
Responding to the prime minister’s statement, Victor Ponta warned Ciolacu that he would replace him at the top of the executive branch after winning the presidential election.
“I think Ciolacu should urgently resign as prime minister – otherwise, I will dismiss him as soon as I become president!” Ponta replied in another Facebook post.
Meanwhile, Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan, who is also running in the May elections, called on Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu to release and declassify all documents underlying the decisions made by Victor Ponta during the 2014 floods.
“Romanians have the right to know, transparently, what Victor Ponta’s decision to flood Romanian villages along the Danube was based on,” he said.
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Presidential candidate Crin Antonescu, of the ruling PSD-PNL-UDMR alliance, also reacted to the news, criticizing Ponta in a social media message: “The fact that you were able to direct water toward Romanian citizens without telling them, that you ignored expert advice and flooded Romanian villages without warning anyone, and now you’re proud of it – saying that in return, you received ‘honorary’ citizenship from another country while serving as Romania’s prime minister… That truly defies imagination.”
He also said that Romanians “deserve to know the extent of the betrayal,” Digi24 reported.
The leader of the DREPT party, Vlad George, announced that he and his colleagues will file a criminal complaint against Victor Ponta for the crime of high treason, Agerpres reports.
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Source: Nova.rs, Foto: EPA / Robert Ghement