Marian Vanghelie
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Daniel Marian Vanghelie (b. 1968, Bucharest) is the current mayor of the 5th Sector of Bucharest and a prominent member of the Romanian Social Democratic Party.
Best described as a populist, Vanghelie started his center-stage political career in the year 2000, when he was elected mayor in the same sector. Although he was not particularly well-known (like most, if not all, of Bucharest's sector mayors, a somehow redundant office), Vanghelie made a name for himself through his populism. He promotes himself as a tell-it-like-it-is, if not particularly well-educated everyman, out to help the simple people. Part of his political strategy are numerous free concerts and celebrations. Likewise, his grammatically incorrect way of speaking enables lower-class Romanians to relate to him in ways unavailable to the more elitist politicians. Vanghelie's trademark phrase is "care este", Romanian for "which is"; he would use this redundant construction as a filler for his speech. Likewise, Vanghelie's way of speaking has another class inflection, in that he often uses the 3rd person singular form of the Romanian verb a fi (to be) even when the subject is in the plural; for example, instead of "ei sunt" ("they are"), Vanghelie would sometimes say "ei este" ("they is") - a construction used by uneducated speakers of Romanian.
One of Vanghelie's most famous publicity stunts is the New Year's Celebrations the Fifth Sector Mayor's Office organizes every year, which can be attended for a very low cost and are popular with low-income residents of the sector, which has the lowest average income in Bucharest. Keeping in with the reputation of the Social-Democratic Party, and with the general tone of Romanian politics, there are also numerous allegations of corruption against Vanghelie, accusations which have not affected his image so far. Because of alleged murky dealings and because he had fallen out of favor with party officials, Vanghelie was excluded from the PSD, and forced to run as an independent in the 2004 local elections, which he won narrowly.
Vanghelie and his wife Charlotte have a son, Alexandru (b. 1994). He has a half-brother, Paul. His parents divorced when Vanghelie was a young boy and his father, who is Jewish, emigrated to Israel, where he is a businessman.
