PSD president, Marcel Ciolacu, was asked on Friday in Brăila whether it seems appropriate to him for a person convicted of pimping and participating in a criminal group to be a candidate on behalf of the PSD.
He avoided a clear answer, saying that „people are always right” and they decide who is „the best steward in their town.”
"People are always right. Romanians are always right. They decide who is the best steward in their town. I do not decide this," Marcel Ciolacu stated on Friday at a press conference in Brăila.
An example was given to Ciolacu about the PSD candidate for the Mayor's Office of Şuţeşti, who was convicted in 2018 for pimping and participating in an organized criminal group and is now supported by the party.
Costică Dobre, the PSD candidate for the Mayor's Office of Şuţeşti commune in Brăila, was definitively convicted in 2018 for pimping and joining an organized criminal group, being found guilty because, together with his brother and sister-in-law, they recruited girls from Romania whom they forced into prostitution in Spain and Greece.
With the conviction, the Galaţi Court of Appeal did not impose a ban on running for office, so in 2020, Dobre ran for office and was elected.
The case of the PSD candidate from Şuţeşti is not unique. In Prahova, for the Mayor's Office of Ciorani commune, PSD recruited a former PNL mayor, Marin Voicu, who was indicted for electoral fraud in favor of PNL in the 2020 local elections and is also being investigated for election fraud in a separate case, the investigation focusing on the falsification of parliamentary elections.
Also in Prahova, PSD withdrew at the last minute, following a court challenge by PNL, the candidacy of a mayor convicted of child pornography, with the social democrats proposing his wife as mayor instead.