Summary
Romania’s electoral commission barred far-right candidate Calin Georgescu from the presidential election without explanation.
Georgescu, who led polls with 40%, called the move “a direct blow to democracy” and plans to appeal. His supporters protested in Bucharest.
The constitutional court annulled his prior election win over alleged Russian interference, which he denies. He faces legal issues, including accusations of financing violations and extremist ties.
A vocal Trump supporter, Georgescu received backing from Trump officials, including Elon Musk and JD Vance, who condemned Romania’s actions.
damn. they should do the sort of thing in other countries
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, this pretty much confirms that the leading parties have been colluding to manipulate elections. The ideal situation would have been him getting his ass whoopped by being voted out. On the other, there was a non-zero chance that he might actually have won.
Either way, the shitshow is not even close to being over. These parties make up 32% of our current parliament, and they’re likely to grow after this stunt, so we’ll have to deal with this crap again during the next election cycle, or sooner.
As a Romanian I’m on the same page as you. While I completely despise this guy for his ties to the fascist movement in Romania, his corrupted political allies, and his closeness to dictators like Trump and Putin, barring him from running for office is a big mistake if no concrete evidence against him is actually laid out. A democracy should be transparent. This entire ordeal wasn’t.
Also people of that kind love nothing more than being a martyr, which means if the whole decision is not absolutely bulletproof, this has the potential to backfire so much. Not Romanian, but I was listening some opinion piece about this just few days ago.
If you allow foreign dictatorships to influence your democracy then are you really a democracy at all? Better to nip people like this in the bud.
Also the legal grounds for their removal was their ties to the Iron Guard, which is illegal.
A vocal Trump supporter, Georgescu received backing from Trump officials, including Elon Musk and JD Vance,
Romania, good job.
Why doesn’t Romania want their political system and economy destabilized because of morons?
fascists deserve to be barred from oxygen
Well, on one hand, I like the far-right getting some institutional push-back. On the other hand, I’m a little concerned with both the state of democracy — that such a candidate could get so many votes — and the disregard for the people’s vote — while there may have been significant Russian interference, to what extent should the courts intervene with what seems to be a genuinely popular candidate?
It’s a shitshow if you look at it closely. Basically he got so many votes because the ruling party wanted to try the pied piper strategy that gave the US Trump. That included giving his campaign illegal support, which invalidated the previous election. And now they’re just outright going to ban him. They’re just throwing away democracy and pretending they’re saving democracy.
Not that I want the guy to win or be anywhere near power, but it’s a strategy that will backfire eventually and has in many countries. But I guess the alternative is to actually deliver for the people and that’s obviously unacceptable.
You misspelled “deliver for Putin”. A lot of countries have laws against foreign influence attacks on their elections.
While I’m sure Putin loves this candidate as well, he was supported by another party within the country. And by deliver for the people, I mean end austerity. If people all have housing, food, jobs, etc, they’re not going to fall for the far right playbook.
It’s a tough question but I don’t think it’s hypocritical.
A good government serves two roles: (a) to protect the rights of its citizens, and (b) to enact policy that is representative of its citizens (as shown by popular vote and opinion, usually). But no policy should be allowed to supersede a real right, no matter how popular.
So if a candidate is going to subjugate rights as a matter of policy, that government is right to bar them, even if that is undemocratic. Minds can differ on what rights have primacy, and how nuanced those rights are, but I think it’s coherent.
That’s a good way to put it, thanks! :D
This is the most reasonable assessment in my opinion. The very same people down voting you would go apeshit if the Supreme Court barred what they deemed a far left candidate. If people don’t like right-wing politicians then they should demand a candidate passionate about popular policies to oppose them. However barring or attempting to, like Democrats did with Bernie, & has other candidates during debates & on the ballots, helped give us Trump.
This is the most reasonable assessment in my opinion.
I wasn’t really assessing anything per se, more so asking a genuine question about whether this kind of thing should happen. I’ll say, I know Lemmy can be a little… Politically interesting… But I was not expecting downvotes for such a mild reply.
But yeah, I’ve actually been thinking about this for quite a while. I really think that, if we want leftist policies implemented, we really do need a charismatic candidate and a compelling narrative that can compete with what the right is pushing.
Imagine if there was a candidate in the 60s that was obviously funded by the CCP and supported by its propaganda machine, which was plotting to surrender its country to the CCP, while being a vocal supporter of planned economics and thumping Mao’s little red book like the Bible. I think a lot of leftists would agree that such a party, though far-left on its face at least, would have been undemocratic at its core and not in the interest of the country itself.
It is in my mind very misleading to try to use an analogy with Bernie Sanders. Sanders, AFAIK, is not interested in upheaving democracy or selling out the country to Russia. This is fundamentally different from many current far-right parties in Eastern Europe.
Now, is it a wise strategy to straight up bar Georgescu’s party without explaining the reasoning as the article claims has been done? Perhaps not (though ample evidence supporting the decision has been provided previously by Romanian intelligence agencies). But one can understand why extreme measures might be called for to counter the electoral interference of a country that is actively invading your neighbor and has openly talked about wanting your country to become a puppet, too.
From ISW, "Georgescu has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leadership and “wisdom” and claimed in 2022 that Ukraine is an “invented state.” ( https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/likely-kremlin-backed-election-interference-against-romania-threatens-bucharests ) Could you find a similarly extreme and anti-democratic view espoused by a “far-left” leader that you think non-tankie leftists commonly support? If you still don’t see how extreme Georgescu’s party is and why they can be rightfully called a Russian agent I highly recommend checking out the ISW article, actually it’s well worth reading either way. Georgescu was even too explicit a Russian stooge for other ultranationalists to stomach (for a while).
