In December 2024, a Romanian court cancelled the second round of the planned Presidential election and annulled the completed first round, citing (totally theoretical) “Russian interference”.
This caused massive protests in Romania, as you can imagine. The first round had been won by right winger Călin Georgescu following a social media-based campaign, and he was predicted to quite easily win the second round as well.
The Romanian opposition – denied a likely victory – took their case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Then, earlier today, the ECHR threw the case out without even hearing it. Apparently, the Romanian courts were perfectly within their rights to simply indefinitely postpone their election on the basis of unproven allegations, and all those people who already voted and wanted to vote again can just go to hell.
This is the ECHR, which lectures the world on rights and democratic norms on the regular.
And everyone is apparently just fine with it. It’s crazy.
Imagine the outrage in the media if Putin or Trump had suddenly cancelled elections they looked like losing because “they weren’t going to be fair”.
Anyway, now Călin Georgescu has been arrested, and his supporters are taking to the streets, while the Romanian government is set to crack down on “conspiracy theories” and other “misinformation”.
This anti-election narrative is growing outside of Romania too.
Ukraine, of course, hasn’t had any elections in years either. They also outlawed certain political parties, religions and television channels. Meanwhile, laundering billions of dollars/pounds/euros through the Ukrainian government to boost the bottom line of arms manufacturers is considered “defending democracy”.
Last month, former EU chairman Thierry Breton remarked that they had already had to cancel the Romanian elections, and might have to do the same in Germany. (As it happens the “right side” won in Germany, so I guess that election was fair).
To a smaller extent, nine local elections across the UK have been “postponed” for at least a year for unknown reasons.
Hellbound and Down 