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Wait, how does that work? If the influence was social media messaging it's not like... you now, they are reversing the messaging. The voters who got convinced presumably remain... you know, influenced.
The worry would be that this would prompt people to double down, while normies would stay home because revoting is a hassle, which could backfire.
Of course, Romanians are remarkably detached and cynical about their own democratic process and participation is typically very low, so who the hell knows what happens next. Man, this stupid century sucks.
Tiktok is only one part of it.
- according to Romania electoral law you need to declare who is financing your campaign
- Georgescu ran videos on tiktok without disclosing who pays for it (or if he paid)
- Georgescu repeatedly said that he doesn't pay anything for the campaign
- the campaign ran by Georgescu was paid by some crypto-bro without dubious ties
- Georgescu and cripto-bro used 20k fake accounts to run the campaign (as per info from tiktok themselves)
- Georgescu ran his campaign in election day (ilegal in romania)
Now the fun part:
- Georgescu's bodyguards are known Romanian neo-nazies that are French Legion veterans and that have ties to the Wagner group
No, hey, I'm on board. If the court says there were campaign finance violations I'll accept that. Not shocked.
The questions is more how come the remedy is to run the election again. If Georgescu's campaign was found to have done all that, is that not invalidating or cause for criminal liability for members of the campaign? Will they get to run again? What happens regarding the bunch of people who voted for him on purpose?
I feel like a lot of the conversation is either about the Russian interference or about USR being pissed about the eventuality of running against PSD instead of being a national unity front for the second run, but there's so little info on the legal framework around the decision.
I feel like a lot of the conversation is either about the Russian interference or about USR being pissed about the eventuality of running against PSD instead of being a national unity front for the second run
Can you expand on that? I don't know much about the political situation in Romani beyond this weirdness, and I'm interested.
So, to the best of my understanding (people over there correct me where I make mistakes), the first run of the presidential election returned this surprise Russian-backed fascistoid in first and the liberal centre-right USR second. Then there was a legislative election that instead yielded the... eh... nominally socialdemocrat PSD as first, democrhistian PNL second and USR third.
There was meant to be a second run on the presidentials where only the two first would be eligible, so USR's Elena Lasconi versus Georgescu. Now that the first run has been annulled, the process for the presidentials starts over. That seems... like a huge gamble, but it creates a situation where instead of collecting all the votes from PSD and PNL as a... well, non-fascist, pro-EU candidate, Lasconi may not be in the top two anymore or be there against someone else as opposed to running as the common sense national union candidate. From the quotes I see on the press she's... not pleased about that.
What I don't know is what the rules are to handle this, and what this means for a re-run when it comes to Georgescu. Is he able to run again? I've read that all candidates need to re-enroll and get reviewed for eligibility again, but I have no idea what consequences the ruling has on their eligibility in the first place, if any. It'd seem bizarre that someone gets the entire election annulled on account of seemingly breaking financing and campaigning laws and just... gets to go again?
But I also don't know what happens if he doesn't run. Surely even if all those people voted for him out of spite they did so on purpose. And don't underestimate how many people there are genuinely fringe-right. The "they're all the same" and "drain the swamp" crap that got Trump elected is no US-only.
I think the purpose of the re-enrolment is to get Georgescu out of the game, same as they did with Șoșoacă in July. They will probably reject him based on the money thing from the first round.
When it comes to the actual votes, that is going to be a shitshow. A lot of people who voted for him had no idea what they vote for, they only chose him because he didn't have any of the major parties to back him up. Funny enough, sever years ago AUR proposed him as prim minister, but that's how Romanie works, we read about the candidates only after the elections.
Anyway, since he got in the second round, Georgescu got a lot of free publicity so now people are openly supporting him.
What migtt happen is that his votes will go towards Simion, and then we will be in the same situation as we are now, just with a football hooligan fascist, instead of a post-comunist fascist.
Right. I actually assumed he was running for AUR and only realized he was running as an independent after this whole mess. Knocking him out on the enrolment requirement makes sense, but I still don't understand how the legal and constitutional framework of the whole thing is supposed to work.
It sure sounds like this is how you make a renegade Trump. But then, he was already leading in the first round, so I suppose that ship has sailed. I'm afraid this may just be the beginning of this nonsense.
Thanks a lot for the explainer!
This election is very interesting, viewing it from Hungary, and not just because AUR is what it is regarding Hungarian minorities.
Orbán has openly stated that the "forces on the side of peace" - read "the Russians" - will be making it a test run for a gambit that might save his own ass in our next election in 2026. He's actually in the minority for the first time in forever.
Fingers crossed you guys get to avoid becoming another Russian puppet.
and that have ties to the Wagner group
They better not to plan to take plane