the largest electoral scores in the country: 88.69% of the vote in 2004, and 83.26% in 2008. Consequently, he became the third ethnic German mayor of a Romanian city since Albert Dörr and (who briefly served in 1941 in Timișoara), the former who had also served in Sibiu from 1906/07 to 1918 (the first was , who served as elected mayor of the town of Roman in Neamț County, between 1992 and 1996). Throughout his tenure as mayor, he has worked to restore the town's infrastructure and to tighten the local administration. Iohannis is also widely credited with turning his hometown into one of Romania's most popular tourist destinations thanks to the extensive renovation of the old downtown. During his first term, Iohannis worked with a town council which was formed by PDSR/PSD, FDGR/DFDR, PD, CDR, and PRM. Since 2004, during his second and third terms, his own party, FDGR/DFDR, had the majority. Between 2008 and 2012, FDGR/DFDR had 14 out of 23 councillors, PDL 4, PSD 3, and PNL only 2. Iohannis established contacts with foreign officials and investors. Sibiu was declared the European Capital of Culture of 2007, along with Luxembourg (the bearer of the distinction in 1995). Luxembourg chose to share this honourable status with Sibiu due to the fact that many of the Transylvanian Saxons emigrated in the 12th century to Transylvania from the area where Luxembourg is today. Sibiu, or Hermannstadt in German, which was mainly built by the Transylvanian Saxons as early as the Middle Ages, was for many centuries the cultural centre of the German ethnic group in Transylvania, and was a predominantly German-speaking town until the mid 20th century. Subsequently, many Germans left the town after World War II, and especially in 1990, within months of the fall of the Iron Curtain. On 7 November 2005, Iohannis was nominated as the "Personality of the Year for a European Romania" () by the Eurolink – House of Europe organization. Candidacy for the Prime Minister of Romania (supported by the PSD) On 14 October 2009, the leaders of the opposition parliamentary groups (the National Liberal Party, the Social Democratic Party, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, the Conservative Party led by Dan Voiculescu, and the group of smaller ethnic minorities), proposed Iohannis as a candidate for the Prime Minister of Romania, after the government of Prime Minister Emil Boc fell a day before