The results of last Sunday's second tour of the local elections are showing the defeat of the PD-L (Democrat-Liberal Party), both in Bucharest and the other important cities in Romania. According to the communique from the Central Electoral Office released yesterday, independent candidate Sorin Oprescu was elected a general mayor of Bucharest due to a score of 56,3%, thus defeating the PD-L candidate Vasile Blaga, with a score of 43,68%. The party has therefore lost a highly important battle, after eight years of ruling over the capital city of Romania through representatives such as Traian Basescu and Adrian Videanu. The PD-L candidates Razvan Murgeanu, Radu Silaghi and Sebastian Bodu lost the Bucharest elections and they failed to become mayors of the Bucharest districts 1, 4 and 5. Liberal Andrei Chiliman, Conservative Cristian Piedone and Social-Democrat Marian Vanghelie were elected to head the latter districts instead. Cristian Poteras is the only Liberal-Democrat who won an official seat as mayor of district 6, defeating Social-Democrat Dan Darabont. The results released yesterday by the Central Electoral Office are showing the PD-L as the great loser in the big cities. Emil Boc's candidates were successful only in Ploiesti (Andrei Liviu Volosevici) and Drobeta Turnu Severin (Gheorghe Constantin), which are to be ruled by Liberal-Democrat candidates. The Social-Democrats and the Liberals are now the local masters, enjoying the largest number of mandates in cities of great electoral importance. This is one proof that the numerous electoral alliances at local level between the PSD (Social-Democrat Party) and the PNL (National Liberal Party), have yielded as expected. The PSD has now got leadership over 10 towns: Curtea de Arges ( Diaconu Nicolae), Bistrita (Cretu Ovidiu-Teodor), Braila (Simionescu Aurel Gabriel), Mangalia (Tusac Mihai-Claudiu), Galati (Nicolae Dumitru), Iasi (Nichita Gheorghe), Caracal (Anghel Gheorghe), Alexandria (Dragusin Victor), Vaslui (Paval Vasile) and Focsani (Bacinschi Decebal Gabriel). As for the Liberals, their representatives are going to rule over the following localities as mayors: Bacau (Romeo Stavarache), Calarasi (Dragu Nicolae), Hunedoara (Hada Ovidiu Marius), Aiud (Josan Mihai Horatiu), Campulung (Andrei Calin Ioan) and Calafat (Guta Mircea Marinel). And it is to be added that Iuliu Ylies, a representative of the Democrat Union of Magyars in Romania, was elected a mayor of Satu Mare.

Razvan GHEORGHE