Romania, facing serious lack of highways, plans to include political leader Dragnea's marginal county on future highway route

Romania’s government is expecting that three highway projects would be finished through public-private partnerships within five years, deputy PM Viorel Stefan said on Tuesday. One of the planned highways crosses the county of Teleorman, known to be the stronghold of governing party leader Liviu Dragnea – a county which is off all major transportation routes in a country which faces a lack of highways in key regions.

The announcement came after hundreds of drivers from the region of Moldova, Eastern Romania protested in Bucharest last weekend against the lack of action by the government to build a highway through their region, which lacks any form of major speedway,

The minister announced three planned highways:

• one connecting the Moldovan towns of Targu Neamt and Isi with the border town of Ungheni, that is to the East, not to the South or West as Moldovans have been demanding for more than a decade
• another one would be the Southern Highway, which would connect Alexandria, in the county of Teleorman, with Craiova, Drobeta Turnu Severin and Lugoj. Notable here is that Teleorman is the fiefdom of Liviu Dragnea, the leader of the governing Social Democrats (PSD), and one of the poorest counties in Romania, without any relevance for major transportation routes.
• a third segment would be a highway connecting the cities of Ploiesti and Rasnov.