- No evidence has emerged in the five months since the claim, suggesting it was merely an attempt by Romanian institutions to bar Calin Georgescu from the election.
- Romania’s rigged elections are a wake-up reminder for every country that has, for years, been listening to the European Union’s concept of democracy.
- For Europe’s liberal institutions, securing power justifies any means – even silencing opposition, reducing democracy and the rule of law to mere words with no real-world application.
The Romanian Presidential elections have concluded, and to the surprise of all, independent candidate Nikusor Dan, the incumbent Bucharest mayor, has won the most controversial election in Romanian political history and also in recent European Union history. The Presidential elections in Romania, which first started in October 2024, were surrounded by controversy. The entire establishment, the entire European Union, and the anti-EU candidate Calin Georgescu announced his candidature for the elections. However, when the election happened, he emerged victorious in the first round.
This was a major turning point for all the establishments and all the pro-European Union candidates inside Romania. Calin won the election. The election was called off in a claim made by the Election Commission, which was further supported by the judiciary of Romania, that Calin is a Russian agent and Russia has been funding the candidate to support the Russian cause in Romania.
However, it has been 5 months since this claim was made, and there has been no evidence presented whatsoever to hold Calin accountable for any wrongdoing. This suggests that it was just an attempt made by the institutions of Romania to bar Calin Georgescu from running in the elections. Then, after a month-long pause in May, the Romanian elections started again. In this round, Calin was not even able to enroll himself as a participant in the elections. The election was now limited only to independent Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan and the far-right candidate George Simion.
The first round of Presidential elections happened again, where Simion won the first round. However, he was not able to secure 50% of the vote, as a result of which a second round was scheduled for May 18th. Surprisingly, in the second round, the far-right candidate lost the election by almost 800,000 votes. This is quite suspicious because he emerged victorious in the first round, but in the second round, he not only lost the election, but lost it by a large margin.
Amid all of this, there was a very shocking statement made by Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov, where he alleged that the French President Emmanuel Macron had been requesting Telegram not to give representation to far-right voices in Romania, to inherently support the liberal parties inside Romania.
Looking into all the election controversies since the second half of 2024, and considering the claims made by Telegram, it appears very clear that there is no rule of law currently existing in Romania. As of now, Romania is the most compromised democracy in Europe. More importantly, this compromised democracy is not just limited to Romania—it has become the new reality of the whole of Europe, where candidates are selectively targeted based on their ideology and are not allowed to run in elections.
The same has happened with Marine Le Pen in France. A similar attempt has been made in Serbia, where every time Serbian President Vucic has been involved in a controversy, efforts have been made to suppress opposition. Now, a similar attempt has occurred in Romania.
The major problem that arises is that this is the same European Union that considers itself to be the champion of democracy and is the first to preach to other countries when it comes to democratic norms. But when it comes to themselves and following democratic norms within their own countries, they are the first to violate democracy.
So, democracy for Europe, specifically for the liberal establishment in Europe, has become a cherry-picking topic. For them, the only thing that matters is political interest and political power. For the liberal institutions in Europe, anything that helps them secure political power is acceptable, even if it means crushing the opposition. Democracy and the rule of law have now been reduced to something that only exists on paper. Its real-life application is absent.
This is a wake-up reminder for every country that has, for years, been listening to the European Union’s concept of democracy. In the European Union, unelected leaders have much more power than elected leaders. The world has to be watchful and careful of Europe’s double standards.
Aayush Pal is a freelance writer on contemporary geopolitical developments. The views expressed in his work are entirely his own.
Saisha Kamla Dudha 
Abhinav Sharma 
Balaji Subramanian