A vocal Trump supporter, Georgescu received backing from Trump officials, including Elon Musk and JD Vance,
Romania, good job.
this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025
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Why doesn’t Romania want their political system and economy destabilized because of morons?
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?
Paradox of tolerance. Don’t fall for it. Fascists do not now, and will never, get the benefit of the doubt.
Sigh... I really don't like the way things have been going in Europe...
Hey man, I know it’s kinda crazy. But overall, it’s better than what’s happening over here in the states.
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(6 replies)
There is strong legal backing to this. Romania bars anyone with ties to or rhetoric similar to the Iron Guard (Romanian fascists) from running. Georgescu has strong ties to them, and he's not even the only politician barred from running due to this for this election (Sosoaca).
Not to mention, their open ties to the fascist party running the USA is also quite problematic. Very very high chance of foreign interference.
Georgescu has strong ties to them
I see he's praised the Iron Guard before. Makes sense.
It's a tough call to make, isn't it? Baring a candidate is inherently undemocratic, surely in a perfect democracy any candidate who is receiving votes should be considered. However given the current state of global politics, it's also equally true that any candidate who is being manipulated by an outside government (such as allegedly Russia/USA in this example) should be restricted for the very same reasoning of allowing the voters to have their say without interference or manipulation by people who have an interest in the election being decided undemocraticly.
Ultimately, the decision to prevent any candidate, popular or not, is one that should not be taken lightly. And yet must also be a decision that can and should be made under the right conditions to protect the democratic nature of elections.
I sincerely hope that the people who made the decision in this case explain their reasoning publicly, and have a very good justification for doing so.
Yeah, I do suppose you're right on that... We'll wait and see. At the end of the day, I guess it's the Romanian people that'll have to decide whether this was acceptable or not, too.
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.
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).
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.
I think you're forgetting a little bit of history bud:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774/
https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/07/politics/donna-brazile-2016-primary/index.html
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.
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.
I guess we'll see...
fascists deserve to be barred from oxygen
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.
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.
Well, that's the issue, those were not the legal grounds for his removal. Those would've been better than the current situation.
The electoral office basically barred him because of the previous decision made by the constitutional court to stop the election process because of his supposed ties to an unnamed, foreign government and discrepancies in his declarations regarding his funding (basically he claimed to have spent zero euros on his campaign even though it is proven that multiple millions have been spent to run his campaign for him).
In the meantime, we've only heard that he might have had connections to Russia and what not, but no concrete proof has been laid out. At all. Only rumors and information that slowly drips out from anonymous sources supposedly involved with the investigation.
Now don't get me wrong, I hate the guy's guts. I'm the complete opposite of what that man stands for. I'm a queer socialist. But at the same time I can recognise that our authorities kind of fucked up massively here. They need to be transparent. With the way they're handling the situation right now they're just turning this fascist into some sort of martyr.
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.
The guy said that if he becomes president, he'll dismantle all political parties. In a democratic system you cannot let someone run for president if they openly vow to dismantle democracy itself.
Great example of the paradox of tolerance.
It’s good that Romania is defending its democracy - Georgescu is a fraud as much as he is a clown, clearly unfit for office as he will not uphold the rule of law and will abuse his power.
With that said, where do you draw the line when barring people from running? Some will see this as an attack of democracy itself, in which anyone is allowed to run for office and is elected by the people. Blocking adversaries from running isn’t exactly the definition of democracy.
Unless the secret service declassifies its evidence that Georgescu is in any way affiliated or promoted by Russia, I see this going downward, with him and his ideology getting even more supporters due to this paradox of tolerance.
Why does this use 40% instead of the percentage of votes he got in the last election: 23%
They did release an official statement later in the day to explain the rejection: https://adevarul.ro/stiri-interne/evenimente/de-ce-a-respins-bec-candidatura-lui-georgescu-2427400.html
And the full document: https://www.realitatea.net/stiri/politica/cum-explica-bec-respingerea-candidaturii-lui-calin-georgescu-document-oficial_67cdfbf3430c6b3d205eb226
Unfortunately, it's still kind of abstract and legalese, with not further proof of interference. And it's mostly self referencing the previous annulment as the cause.
Călin Georgescu's candidacy does not meet the conditions of legality, as he "by failing to respect the rules of the electoral procedure, violated the very obligation to defend democracy", which is based on "fair, honest and impartial" elections.
While it's good avoid another Putin lapdog, the way in which this was done might come back to bite them in the ass.
damn. they should do the sort of thing in other countries
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