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Made Romanian history: Dominic Samuel Fritz
Photo: Ovidiu David / dpa
The young man climbs onto an improvised podium - a pile of old pallets that his supporters spontaneously dragged in from a nearby construction site.
He waves his hand, hundreds of people cheering in the square.
"The city has made a new revolution today," he calls into the microphone.
"She didn't listen to the nationalists, she said that it was a European city. She elected a European mayor and with it she made history for Europe."
The cheers break out again.
The scene leaked out on Siegesplatz in Timisoara, western Romania, last Sunday evening: Dominic Fritz, 36 years old, a native German from Baden-Württemberg, not a Romanian citizen, gives an acceptance speech in accent-free and error-free Romanian.
He, the foreigner who could outwardly pass as a student, has just been elected mayor of the third largest Romanian city.
This is possible because EU citizens have passive and active local voting rights at their place of residence, in Romania since 2015.
Fritz has only been living permanently in Timisoara for a year
Dominic Fritz has known Timişoara since 2003 when he was doing voluntary social service here in an orphanage.
He has only lived permanently in the city for a year.
It promises an end to administration, nepotism and corruption, more transparency and closeness to the citizen - in short: a "revolution of good governance".
In doing so, he convinced many people who were tired of the eight-year rule of the authoritarian and corruption-suspected liberal mayor Nicolae Robu.
Far more people than Fitz suspected.
He immediately received 53 percent of the vote, almost twice as many as the previous incumbent.
"I figured I had good chances, but not that the victory would be so clear, especially after a campaign with nationalist tones," Fritz told SPIEGEL.
"That doesn't show how great I am, but primarily how great this city is."
The election of Dominic Fritz as mayor of Timișoara is the great sensation of a spectacular local election in Romania.
It has mixed up a lot in the traditional power and party structure of the country, in which local and district councils play a very important role.
Eco-liberal party wins the battle for mayor in Bucharest
The symbolic winner of the election is the eco-liberal two-party alliance USR-PLUS, in English: "Union saves Romania - party of freedom, unity and solidarity".
It emerged in part from a civil rights and environmental movement and has established itself as the third largest party.
Dominic Fritz also competed for them in Timisoara.
Although USR-PLUS overall lagged behind previous polls, it was able to win important mayor posts for the first time, including not only Timişoara but also the post of mayor of Bucharest.
He will be dressed by long-time activist Nicușor Dan, who has long been fighting against corruption and for more sustainable urban development in the Romanian capital.
Independent candidates and political newcomers also won in other important cities, for example in the Transylvanian district town of Neumarkt (Târgu Mureș), where many members of the Hungarian minority live.
In March 1990 it was the scene of a bloody conflict provoked by Romanian nationalists.
For the first time in two decades, a Hungarian won the election in the city, the archaeologist Zoltán Soós, who ran an anti-nationalist program and was thus able to appeal to Romanian voters.
The ruling National Liberal Party (PNL), which is close to President Klaus Johannis, also performed surprisingly well, although its corona management has been extremely chaotic in some cases in recent months.
It apparently still benefited from the disastrous years of government of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), whose rule was ended a year ago by a vote of no confidence.
The party is a reservoir for old functionaries, nationalists and corrupt local rulers;
in her reign she mainly defused the fight against corruption.
In the current election, some powerful "local barons" lost their decades-old posts for the first time.
The choice in Timisoara fits in with a trend
Overall, observers see the local election as an expression of the fact that most people in Romania are increasingly impatient to demand a transparent, corruption-free and modern state.
The choice is part of an important trend in the region:
For some time now, dissatisfaction with the predominantly authoritarian and corrupt governments has been growing in the Eastern European EU countries and the Western Balkans.
Bulgaria is currently experiencing mass protests against the system of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov.
In Montenegro, on the other hand, a historic turnaround recently took place - the party of President Milo Đukanović, who established an authoritarian and corrupt regime decades ago, was voted out.
The fact that Timisoara is now also fitting into this trend is highly symbolic - and no coincidence.
Romanians, Hungarians, Serbs, Germans, Roma and other nationalities have lived together in the city for centuries, and many of the residents are multilingual.
The uprising against the Ceaușescu dictatorship began in Timisoara in December 1989.
Given the tradition of tolerance and love of freedom, most Timisarians will not find it difficult to accept Dominic Fritz as mayor.
The trained political scientist studied in France and Great Britain, among others, and as a member of the German Greens, he made local politics in Frankfurt.
He worked in international development projects and peace missions in Africa.
Before moving to Timisoara, he was the Berlin office manager of the former Federal President Horst Köhler.
"Signal for a European Romania and also to the centers of Europe"
He sees his election as mayor of Timisoara as "a signal for a European Romania and also to the centers of Europe, which like to revolve around themselves".
Timisoara, says Fritz, was Europe long before the EU existed.
"The fact that a big city like this now has a European mayor could be the next step in European integration at a time when many are looking for answers to the question of how the bureaucratic monster EU can be brought closer to the people."
And fear of being sabotaged, of failing, like so many reformers in Romania in the past three decades, he doesn't?
"No," says Fritz.
"This pessimistic Romanian phrase annoys me: 'What can you do ?!'
My motto is: You can do something. "
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