Andrei Popoviciu writes:

From Bucharest’s corporate high-rise districts to its crumbling housing blocks, from sleepy suburbs in the flatlands to misty Transylvanian villages where the sheep outnumber voters, and others holding NATO bases and absorbing European Union funds, I crisscrossed my home country of Romania ahead of its May presidential election to speak to voters about the choices they were about to make. What I found was a country gripped by anxiety, suspicion, fear and a growing sense that democracy might be broken — or worse, rigged beyond repair.

“The deep state decided for us.”

“My vote doesn’t matter.”

“Democracy is dead.”

“The vote was stolen.”

“The system doesn’t want change.”

These weren’t fringe conspiracy theorists. These were ordinary voters — bakers, police officers, pensioners, teachers — voicing something between outrage and resignation. And while their words may sound dramatic, the context wasn’t exactly reassuring either.

The first round of elections, held last December, was annulled after then-President Klaus Iohannis dropped a political bomb: classified intelligence files alleging foreign interference in favor of a previously obscure, pro-Russian ultranationalist named Călin Georgescu, who won the first round even though he was polling in single digits.

The Constitutional Court annulled the results based on those documents. What followed was a cascade of accusations from Romanian prosecutors: shady, undeclared campaign financing; antisemitic rants; the glorification of fascist symbols and interwar fascist leaders; and even alleged ties to a failed insurrection attempt (allegedly organized days after the initial election was overturned) involving a mercenary warlord who also financed his campaign.

Before the dust had settled, Georgescu was banned from advancing to the runoff, but not without gaining martyr status among disenfranchised voters.

Authorities said the disqualification was constitutional, a necessary step to safeguard the democratic order. But for many, it felt like confirmation that the game was fixed from the start. First the annulment, now this? A propped-up villain removed just in time for the system’s preferred candidate to win? The plot wrote itself.

And yet, in May, something unexpected happened. Voter turnout surged to a historic 65%, unheard-of in Romania in recent decades. In the end, the centrist Nicușor Dan defeated his extremist rival George Simion, who had taken over as leader of the ultranationalist camp after Georgescu’s disqualification, even though Dan had trailed far behind in the first round. If democracy was dead, I thought, the funeral was very well attended.

So, did Romania’s institutions just save the country from tipping into authoritarianism? Or did they bend democratic principles in order to defend them, undermining trust in the process and paving the way for a bigger extremist surge in the next election cycle?

That debate is still raging in the absence of explanations from the establishment. Over breakfast on election day, Dan told me he was committed to rebuilding trust in Romania’s democracy, starting, he said, by explaining more transparently than his predecessors why the original election was annulled. He added that he was prepared to release additional documents to back it up.

But the issue isn’t particular to Romania. Across Europe, democracies seem to be under pressure from antidemocratic forces on the extreme right. In response to that, governments and courts are increasingly resorting to bans, disqualifications and legal designations in an effort to hold the line and protect democracy. [Continue reading…]