USR PLUS's Ciolos did not expect winning the largest number of votes in internal elections

USR PLUS (Save Romania Union, Freedom, Unity, Solidarity Party) co-chair Dacian Ciolos confessed on Thursday that he did not expect to rank first after the first round of elections for the party's top position, agerpres reports.

"I did not expect this result. I did not expect to have so many colleagues present at the vote," he told a news conference at the party's headquarters.

Ciolos mentioned that the second round of the elections is coming and showed that "the game is open," and the result was a "tight" one.

At the same time, he voiced hope that in the second round the same atmosphere of the competition will be maintained, and after the elections, USR PLUS will be "consolidated," so that in 2024 it will prove that it can be the main governing party.

USR PLUS co-chairs Dacian Ciolos and Dan Barna are currently running for president of the part in the second round of the party elections. Following the first round, Dacian Ciolos came out first, with 15,111 votes (46%), Dan Barna received 14,404 votes (43.9%) and Irineu Darau had 3,300 votes (10.1%).

Out of 44,114 voting members, 32,815 (74.4%) voted.

The members of USR PLUS had the opportunity to vote online, last week, for the new president of the party resulting from the merger between USR and PLUS. The result of the online election is to be validated by the USR PLUS congress, which will take place on October 2-3, at Romexpo, in Bucharest.