“In no case does anyone believe you anymore that you’re a sovereignist and that you’d die fighting neck-and-neck with everybody for your people and your country,” Ciolacu wrote to Ponta in a Facebook post, where he called on his former party colleague to leave the presidential race.
Ciolacu was an honorary adviser to Ponta at the time of the floods, according to Romanian media outlet HotNews.
Grindeanu said Ponta’s admission about the floods shows he always puts himself first, also calling on him to withdraw.
Ciolacu and Grindeanu’s Social Democratic Party are supporting Crin Antonescu in the presidential race, in cooperation with the National Liberal Party, which Antonescu led, and the Hungarian minority party the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania.
Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan, who’s running for president as an independent, called on Ciolacu to publish and declassify all documents relating to Ponta’s decisions around the 2014 floods.
Ponta told POLITICO that he will “always choose to save human lives over fields. This is what it means to be a crisis leader.”
