Trandafir will run against conservative Liliana Minca, former head of the Romanian Lottery. Minca is also endorsed by the opposition Social Democratic Party. Opposition liberals said they will not have a candidate for the MP seat.
A lawmaker seat in the Chamber of Deputies, in a constituency of capital Bucharest, has been vacant since early February, when conservative Daniela Popa resigned and accepted a position on the board of the country’s insurance regulator CSA.
Trandafir, 42, is an Arab language major graduate of Bucharest’s Foreign Languages Faculty and has made a name for herself by hosting popular TV entertainment shows on various networks. She put her television career on the back-burner in 2008 but said late 2009 she would host a show to air on local TV stations in the country.