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.
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).
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
https://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wasserman-schulz-rigged-primaries-against-sanders/
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.