{"id":191641,"date":"2025-03-15T12:21:44","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T12:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/?p=191641"},"modified":"2025-03-15T12:21:44","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T12:21:44","slug":"romania-the-first-post-election-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/romania-the-first-post-election-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Romania \u2013 The first \u201cpost-election\u201d democracy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In December 2024, Romanian Constitutional Court cancelled the second round of the planned Presidential election<\/a> and annulled the completed first round, citing (totally theoretical) \u201cRussian interference<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This caused massive protests in Romania, as you can imagine. The first round had been won by right winger C\u0103lin Georgescu following a virtual-communication-based campaign, and he was predicted to quite easily win the second round as well.<\/p>\n

C\u0103lin Georgescu \u2013 denied a likely victory \u2013 took his case to the European Court of Human Rights.<\/p>\n

Then, on March 6, 2025, the ECHR threw the case out<\/a> without even hearing it. Apparently, the Romanian courts were perfectly within their rights to simply indefinitely postpone the election on the basis of unproven allegations, and all those people who already voted and wanted to vote again don\u2019t really matter.<\/p>\n

This is the ECHR, which lectures the world on rights and democratic norms on the regular.<\/p>\n

And everyone is apparently just fine with it. It\u2019s crazy.<\/p>\n

Imagine the outrage in the media if Putin or Trump had suddenly cancelled elections they looked like losing because \u201cthey weren\u2019t going to be fair<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Anyway, later C\u0103lin Georgescu has been taken to interrogations by police, and his supporters were taking to the streets,<\/a> while the Romanian government is set to crack down on<\/a> \u201cconspiracy theories<\/em>\u201d and other \u201cmisinformation<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

This anti-election narrative is growing outside of Romania too.<\/p>\n

Ukraine, of course, hasn\u2019t 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 \u201cdefending democracy<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Recently, former EU chairman Thierry Breton remarked<\/a> that they had already had to cancel the Romanian elections, and might have to do the same in Germany. (Interestingly, the \u201cright side\u201d won in Germany, so I guess that election was fair after all).<\/p>\n

To a smaller extent, nine local elections across the UK have been \u201cpostponed<\/em>\u201d for at least a year<\/a> for unknown reasons.<\/p>\n

This is not about controlling the result because they could accomplish the same by just rigging it. We know they rig elections all the time.<\/p>\n

No, this isn\u2019t about controlling the votes, it\u2019s about controlling the language. Taking words and tearing them away from their old-fashioned definitions. Even inverting those meanings.<\/p>\n

Seeding the idea that democracy doesn\u2019t necessarily have to include voting and that, in the right circumstances, voting is actually anti-democratic and cancelling elections is more \u201cdemocratic<\/em>\u201d than holding them.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocratic<\/em>\u201d can become a free-floating concept removed from real-world application. It\u2019s just a nice notion, something that we and all the people on our side just are,<\/em> and all the meanies on the other side are not.<\/p>\n

We have \u201cdemocracy<\/em>\u201d, and it doesn\u2019t matter how many elections we cancel or political parties we ban, or religions we outlaw or journalists we lock up or outlets we censor\u2026\u2026. we still have democracy. Because now it means whatever we want it to mean.<\/p>\n

Author: Kit Knightly (Off Guardian)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

yogaesoteric
\nMarch 15, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In December 2024, Romanian Constitutional Court cancelled the second round of the planned Presidential election and annulled the completed first round, citing (totally theoretical) \u201cRussian interference\u201d. This caused massive protests in Romania, as you can imagine. The first round had been won by right winger C\u0103lin Georgescu following a virtual-communication-based campaign, and he was predicted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1093],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-censored-news-social-5127-en-censored-sensational-news-3480-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191645,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191641\/revisions\/191645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}