I live in Romania and about a year ago we elected a new President a German-ethnic leading a country inhabited 80% by ethnic Romanians and only about 0.1% by the German minority. I admired President-to-be Klaus Iohannis because he was proud that until the age of 30 he almost exclusively rode a bicycle for transportation. Even more than that, after becoming mayor of a major city for more than a decade he transformed it into a bike-friendly city with innovative infrastructure for cyclists.
BUT after becoming President of Romania in November 2014 he completely forgot about his cycling passion and nowdays he's abusing his Constitutional right to have motorized escort comprising of up to a dozen cars and ambulances. Even at his book launch earlier this year he appeared with his disproportionate security forces apparatus while attending a low-risk event in the center of capital city Bucharest. Little wonder that his popularity level plummeted constantly in the last 6 months.
So I launched an online campaign, gaining quite a bit of social media buzz nationwide, but relatively few people signed my online petition urging the Romanian President to revert to using the bicycle for his non-essential low-risk trips in downtown Bucharest, instead of jamming car traffic with his limo cortege almost on a daily basis.
I believe that him riding a bicycle, surrounded by his guards on bicycles, would send the international community a positive message about Romania, that things are calm and relaxed here and little-to-no worries about terrorism.
I would be thankful to receive advice from anyone in this forum on how to power-up the campaign. Especially without me necessitating to buy expensive advertising to reach a broad national audience and mainstream media attention.
