Former MEP Vlad Gheorghe announced his withdrawal from the race for the Mayor of the Capital and his support for Ciprian Ciucu.
„I will support Ciucu further, I appeal to those who wanted to vote for me to support him,” stated Vlad Gheorghe on Tuesday in a press conference held together with Ciprian Ciucu.
He added that Bucharest must remain a bastion of democracy.
"After several discussions and after looking together at all the sociological studies we had, as I declared in the past days, we all see what is already becoming very well known, that an extremist candidate with connections and history in the PSD has real chances of becoming the mayor of the Capital.
At this moment, the responsible thing to do is to support Mr. Ciprian Ciucu to be the future general mayor of the Capital, so that Bucharest remains a bastion of democracy and so that Bucharest does not end up in the hands of PSD extremists," stated Vlad Gheorghe, quoted by News.ro.
He made an appeal to the USR candidate, Cătălin Drulă, to support Ciprian Ciucu.
"I want to make another appeal to Mr. Drulă, also a right-wing candidate, but currently in fourth place, to understand at the eleventh hour that the responsible thing to do is to come alongside us in this alliance, the alliance of candidates, not of parties, and to also support Mr. Ciucu if he does not want an extremist mayor in the Capital," declared Vlad Gheorghe.
Tight competition
Vlad Gheorghe's decision comes at a time when the competition for Bucharest is extremely tight, and the votes of independent candidates or smaller parties can decisively tip the balance.
An AtlasIntel survey for HotNews, published on Monday, shows that Daniel Băluță, the PSD candidate in the December 7, 2025 elections, and the independent candidate supported by AUR, Anca Alexandrescu, lead in the voting intentions of Bucharest residents (separated by 0.1%), closely followed, at 1.5%, by Ciprian Ciucu.
- Polling agency that best anticipated previous elections: Only 0.1% difference between Băluță and Anca Alexandrescu. Ciucu is in third place
- Bucharest, deeply polarized before the vote
Vlad Gheorghe was placed between 1%-3% in recent polls.
Gheorghe entered the European Parliament in the 2019–2024 term, on the USR PLUS lists, taking the seat left vacant by Clotilde Armand, who resigned as MEP after winning the Mayor of Sector 1. In early 2024, Vlad Gheorghe resigned from USR following an internal scandal.
Also in 2024, he ran for a new term as MEP, this time as an independent, but he did not gather the necessary votes to confirm his mandate in Brussels.
Vlad Gheorghe's candidacy for the General Mayor of the Capital was evoked from the moment he appeared publicly alongside Nicușor Dan, both during the electoral campaigns and after the latter won the position of general mayor, as reported by Mediafax.
However, Vlad Gheorghe's withdrawal is not a singular case in this campaign. Makavelli, another candidate initially in the race for the Mayor of the Capital, decided to withdraw. He announced that he supports Anca Alexandrescu, the candidate supported by AUR.