President Iohannis: I was a type of atomic fireman who prevented Romania from collapsing

President Klaus Iohannis on Friday stated, in reply to the statements made by the USR-PLUS (Save Romania Union - the Liberty, Unity, Solidarity Party) Alliance's candidate for the presidential elections, Dan Barna, that he was a type of "atomic fireman," who prevented Romania from collapsing. 

"A type of atomic fireman who prevented Romania from collapsing, let's better say it like this. (...) For I believe that I was very present and I will continue to be very present. And I assure you that, without me and my presence, PSD (the Social Democratic Party) would have truly succeeded in destroying the Romanian justice, it would have succeeded in seizing the entire country and this would have meant a catastrophe for many generations from now on," said Iohannis, 

The USR-PLUS candidate for the presidential elections, Dan Barna, on Friday stated that President Klaus Iohannis was "a fireman who came to rescue when the house was already on fire and collapsing" and that "Romania needs a full-time president," instead. 

"The advantage that I have in this competition is precisely the energy and capacity to represent the new generation that wants to get involved in Romania's salvation, for we cannot go on with the old political class, which was precisely the message that we received from thousands of people in all of Romania's counties. (...) Romania needs a full-time president, one who will be present in the citizens' lives every day. A five-year term in office is a long term. We can all see where we are at right now, the situation we are in today. And if we continue like this, maybe we won't make steps backwards, but we will stagnate. But Romania needs to move on, to develop, this is my proposal, and the USR-PLUS Alliance has the exact energy, will and ambition to move on, to stop playing the same old foolish games we kept playing for the past 30 years. (...) President Iohannis was a fireman who came to rescue every time when the house was already on fire and collapsing. But I believe that, if he were a more careful manager, and more diligent, maybe we could have avoided seeing the house on fire so many times as we did in the past couple of years," said Barna, after he submitted his candidacy for the presidential elections with the Central Electoral Bureau.