Among democratic rules that shouldn’t be broken are campaign financing rules and rules against foreign interference (that should be part of the discussion, I believe).
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
Was there Russian interference to boost Georgescu? That is what was claimed and the basis of the annulment. But it also turned out to be UNTRUE! It was another Romanian party that was behind the TikTok campaign:
There has been indeed some news reports explaining that publicly available documents don't fully prove the allegations that led to the Supreme Court decision and/or that things have been more complicated than initially reported, and we should keep an open mind as the investigation advances.
I just think we (who are not familiar with Romania, its political forces and legal framework) should keep cautious. It is far from established in my view that initial claims by national security agency were false or fabricated to prevent "the wrong candidate" to access power.
In a more general sense, the sudden emergence of a candidate (who does not campaign and officially has not spent a penny in campaigning) through social media is troublesome. Traditional democratic institutions (parties, campaigns, debates, etc.) have a clear function in the screening of candidates.
While it would be reprehensible for parties in power to use the institutions to prevent an alternative candidate from emerging (I am with you on the need to preserve open elections), let's also take a step back on what elections bought trough influencers (whoever paid them) mean for a country.
I’m happy to be corrected if I am wrong. But there is no proof for foreign interference. As for why the PNL (a center right party) would boost a far right opponent, so far I’ve seen no satisfactory explanation.
At least one of the theories among many others is that GG was boosted by psd&pnl to get in the end a fight between psd&aur (gg would take some aur votes but god knows what's the deal) where aur would have lost. Problem is, if this was the plan, it backfired heavily. And again, just a theory
The thing looks extremely sketchy because many talking points are very similar to russian propaganda, especially in Moldova. But psd&pnl are pro eu because they can steal some funds in the process. So it looks strange if pnl would finance a prorussian party/candidate
Yep. Tbf, in Romania psd rules. Pnl wouldn't do a thing without talking to psd. In the past they were "enemies" but made an alliance and a bff except during elections publicly. Afterwards again bff
Comments
https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/12/23/romanian-centre-right-partys-tiktok-campaign-used-for-far-right-win-report
It would be a bad look to exclude Georgescu from do-over voting because of this.