Democracy Dies In Romania... After 'Winning' In December, Georgescu Now Banned From May Presidential Election

Is Romania the canary in the 'death of democracy' coalmine?

After today's news, that canary - along with 'democracy' - is well and truly dead.

In a stunning turn of events - that we have a feeling could backfire disastrously on the elite establishment - Romania has barred far-right frontrunner Calin Georgescu from running in May’s presidential election, in a move that could worsen the country’s political turmoil.

The Bucharest-based electoral bureau invalidated Georgescu’s candidacy, a spokesman from the bureau said on Sunday. 

It received more than 1,000 challenges to Georgescu’s candidacy mostly related to his so-called anti-democratic and extremist stances. 

The decision can still be appealed at the Constitutional Court.

The decision to eliminate Georgescu from the May 4 presidential race will likely deepen Romania’s anti-establishment mood and benefit the far-right. 

Polls showed that had Georgescu run, he would’ve garnered between 40% and 45% of the vote in the first round, giving him a real chance of becoming Romania’s president.

Georgescu submitted his candidacy for May’s election - as an independent - reminding voters of the utter farce he has been through over the last coupel of months:

“Everyone is watching Romania and how the corrupt system acted,” said Georgescu on Friday, adding that he thought it’s impossible for his name not to be on the ballot’s list of candidates.

“They can’t afford to repeat the mistake."

Well, they did!

As a reminder, after emerging victorious from the first round of voting in November's presidential election, Romania’s top court in December to annul the outcome of last year’s presidential vote, which cited suspicions of Russian meddling (via TikTok!?) in his campaign.

Following their decision, the Black Sea bordering nation tumbled into its biggest political crisis since the collapse of communism. 

The decision has also buoyed the success of Romania’s extremist parties, in a country already disillusioned with the political mainstream, prompting massive protests nationwide...

Two weeks ago, the prosecutor's office has reportedly imposed the following restrictions on him and his campaign:

1) Barred from appearing on mass media

2) Forbidden from creating social media accounts

A Romanian Court Press Release cites "attempted incitement against the constitutional order" (coup), "spreading false information," as well as "false statements on campaign funding," and links to "fascist, xenophobic, and antisemitic organizations."

And that prompted yet more large-scale protests.

While Georgescu planned to run as an independent, he is backed by two far-right opposition parties. Recent polls show he’d get about 40% of the vote in the first round of the May ballot.

It remains to be seen whether Georgescu will throw his support behind any of the other candidates, such as the leader of the largest far-right opposition party AUR, George Simion, who backed him after the cancellation of the elections.

Georgescu denies any wrongdoing and continues to claim that he received no funding for his campaign last year, which he says was exclusively volunteer-run.

“The Romanian people will always win,” Georgescu said in front of his supporters at the electoral bureau in Bucharest.

“Democracy was killed in December but we are reviving it today.”

The unprecedented move to annul last year’s election result is still viewed as controversial by most Romanians and was criticized by the Trump administration.

We suspect those criticisms will turn all the way up to 11 after today's court decision to ban him from actually being on the ballot.

None of this should be a surprise - as shocking as it is for an elite establishment who constantly crow about "democracy".

Simply put, from the perspective of western liberal world order, Georgescu cannot be allowed to win because he takes the common sense approach that confrontation with Moscow does much more harm to Romanians than to Russia.

And Romania is simply too important to NATO and the effort to weaken Russia. Washington and Brussels are already dealing with wayward governments in Hungary and Slovakia, but Romania is a different animal.

Romania is also the site of the $2.7 billion expansion of Mihail Kogălniceanu airbase to make it the largest one in Europe.

It’s entirely possible that Romania is just the start of annulled elections as the neoliberal war champions who call themselves the “center” would no doubt love the power to cancel elections wherever they see fit.

We give the last words to Andrew Korybko who summarized the importance of events in Romania (and their consequences):

The Romanian “deep state’s” latest attempt to take down Georgescu is essentially a gauntlet thrown at the Trump Administration by its liberal-globalist opponents in Brussels who fully back Bucharest. They want to test whether the US will do anything in response to the EU’s rolling coup in Romania...

...

What’s unfolding in this Balkan country is nothing less than the opening of another New Cold War front, albeit this time an ideological one between liberal-globalists and populist-nationalists, which also interestingly pits nominal NATO allies against one another as the EU and the US take opposite sides. It’s incumbent on the Trump Administration to do what’s needed to ensure that Georgescu is allowed to run as president in May’s election redux and that the vote is truly free and fair instead of flawed as usual.

To that end, targeted sanctions against Romanian figures, credibly threatening to withdraw its troops from Romania, suspending arms contracts, and extending full political support to populist-nationalist protesters could pressure the authorities into reconsidering the wisdom of doing Brussels’ bidding. At the same time, a comprehensive pressure campaign could also backfire if the German-led EU exploits it as the pretext for deepening its already immense control over Romania, though that could backfire too.

It was explained here in response to the likely next German chancellor’s pledge to “achieve independence” from the US that military, economic, and energy factors make that a lot easier said than done. If provoked, like could soon happen if the German-led EU pushes back against the US’ potentially impending pressure campaign on Romania, then Trump could weaponize each of them in his own such campaign against the EU and Germany that he stands a good chance of winning on both fronts.

Altogether, what just happened in Romania places the country at the center of the intra-Western ideological dimension of the New Cold War, which will determine the future of Europe. Liberal-globalists will either entrench their power in full defiance of Trump, possibly at enormous costs to their countries, or they’ll be democratically deposed by populist-nationalists who share the same worldview as his team. This struggle is historic and the consequences of its outcome will reverberate for decades.

Finally, we can't help but feel like JD Vance should be jumping up and down on X right, posting a 'told you so' about Europe's free-speech crushing, democracy-damaging self-implosion as he made cleAR THAT stands on the side of all populist-nationalist movements on the continent.