i won't give a cry for fascists getting banned.
this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
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The Romanian electoral commission did that. I'm sure they had their reasons - the article cites "statements contradictory to democratic values" (last November) and Russian interference. I guess they have something to back that up with. The Guardian does not say, but until someone convinces me otherwise (edit: that will be really hard after me reading this) I will give the electoral commission the benefit here.
This is government at work. If they really wanted to suppress democratic voices they'd not go about it in a way that just gives free publicity to her and better chances to the remaining far-right candidate.
Romania pointing the way on how to handle fascism. The only thing democracy can’t tolerate is autocracy, and should therefore act on it. And they have some experience in this regard.
Take my upvote Romania!
If you think this is an effective way to fight fascism id suggest you read some books into the history of fascism
Obviously the most effective way to fight fascism is to elect fascist government and wait until fascists show their incompetence as a governing party, while established institutions and system of checks and balances is ensuring the integrity of next elections, so the fascists will be gone once and for all after a single term.
Let me quote something here
If you think this is an effective way to fight fascism id suggest you read some books into the history of fascism
We like democracy but only when you have the same views as the current ruling power
I hope I'm getting where you are pointing at.
No, I don't like how this kind of events play out but for all that is worth, it can not be allowed for groups that espouse extreme ideologies to even gather the smallest of support.
Democracy as been shown, countless times, it is a very fragile system, vulnerable to players willing to manipulate and distort it in order to achieve personal gains, at the detriment of a large majority.
These far right groups prey upon the insecurities of the masses, create and steer the exact narrative to create distrust and obfuscate real issues and preveny people, either by force or by erasure, to raise doubt or demand proof of their claims.
Let's be tolerant, but let's not be tolerant with those who are intolerant.
Sounds great until you remember that the current governments of Romania, Germany, France, Britain, etc. are all arming and funding Nazis in Ukraine and enabling ethnic cleansing by a genocidal apartheid occupation regime in Palestine.
it can not be allowed for groups that espouse extreme ideologies to even gather the smallest of support
but it can be allowed to give billions of Euros and tons upon tons of weaponry to swastika-tatooed Hitler worshippers bent on ethnic cleansing. It can be allowed to prop up a corrupt, kleptocratic, dictatorial regime that has cancelled elections, placed all media under state control, declared WW2 Nazi collaborators to be their national heroes, imprisons, tortures and brutally murders journalists, political opposition, people who make online posts against the government or the war, and people who just don't want themselves or their relatives be forcibly drafted into a war against their own brothers. That can be allowed, right?
Personally i just find it extremely hypocritical to constantly talk about how much Europe loves democracy and at the same time steal an election from the candidate who was about to win it and then go on to ban that candidate, who is clearly polling far ahead of all others, from standing in the repeat elections.
The reality is that these right wingers are not being banned from elections for their extremist views (which they undoubtedly hold, i'm not saying they don't), they are banned because they are anti-EU and want peace with Russia instead of war. That is the "extremism" that is intolerable to the Brussels bureaucrats and their comprador lackeys in the Romanian state. A leftist candidate with the same popularity and the same views toward the tyrannical EU and the self-destructive European drive to war against Russia would be treated exactly the same, if not worse.
Democracy as been shown, countless times, it is a very fragile system, vulnerable to players willing to manipulate and distort it in order to achieve personal gains, at the detriment of a large majority.
This has always been happening for as long as "liberal democracy" has existed. The worst offenders of manipulation and distortion of democracy are the mainstream media, who constantly manipulate public opinion in favor of the so-called "moderate" and "centrist" parties that have been getting elected for decades in Europe. This is also to the detriment of a large majority.
Or do you seriously believe that the policies of either the Tories or the Labor party in the UK have benefited the large majority in Britain? How about Macron in France, has he not been a detriment to the large majority of his citizens? So much so that the French voters overwhelmingly rejected his party (yet he somehow is still in charge...)? How about the SPD, CDU and Greens in Germany? How is it not to my detriment as a German citizen for them to cut social spending in favor of massive rearmament? How is it not a detriment to the large majority of Europeans for these parties to push us into a war with Russia? Why is that still allowed?
Why is it that it is not allowed to democratically vote for candidates who oppose the EU (which is a fundamentally neoliberal and highly undemocratic institution that makes it impossible for countries to have left wing economic policies and is now led by unhinged warmongering lunatics who want to pump hundreds of billons of Euros to their friends in the arms industry) and who want peace instead of war?
Giorgia Meloni in Italy is just as much a fascist sympathizer as these right wingers in Romania, but the reason why she was not treated this way is because she was willing to bend the knee to Brussels.
Are you a russian bot? You just swapped aggressor (russia) with the defender (ukraine). There are some more very wrong points (=lies ?) in your text:
- russia is doing ethnic cleansing in ukraine since 2014. Not the european countries you mentioned.
- Ukraine is invaded right now and so is under martial law. Hence votes are not possible right now. Again blame russia for this not Ukraine.
- it was decided in Romania to ban the candidate not on EU level. EU also did not ban Le Pen, Brexit, etc
- EU is not tyrannical, russia is tyrannical. Russia starts war not EU
- It is self destructive to let Russia do what it wants. To oppose russia is a self protecting measure by EU, hence it is not aggressive but rather defensive.
- regarding the media: it is mainly the polit influencers (e.g. joe rogan or other on tiktok, x, instagram, youtube) and alternativ media (e.g. RT russia today) who lie. And less the mainstream media (but also mainstream media has its problems, nothing is perfect, but your point on this topic is wrong again)
- EU is now preparing for war because it has to react on russias invasion and russias hybrid warfare (dividing the society with fake news, attack on infrastructure, killings of people on eu ground) and it also has to react on trumps threat to annex greenland and it also needs to react on possible future China aggressions, which china already declares since years. EU react even slowly and so is not pushing for war as you mentioned
- there are more contra EU parties in european countries than just the romanian one. Brexit already happened. And each country has the right to do so. EU just accepts that as it has to. Ban of romanian party was done by romanias institution not on EU level
As someone from the US, beautifully said. I’m unfortunately old enough to have witnessed the last 40 - 50 decline in politics. Tried to warn people around me, no one cared. Not that they didn’t believe me, they just didn’t care. The apathy here is stifling.
You can use whatever words you want to describe it, but at the end of the day when we have the majority of the population voting for something you don't want, you're the minority. Trying to fight against the rights of the majority of the population is a dangerous battle only previously tried by authoritarian dictatorships and similar regimes.
No one seriously tried to stop these people from becoming candidates, but now they have support of the public the ruling powers oppose them.
Also worth mentioning, in Romania, political left and rights seem to be flipped. Far right wing candidates want more rights for gays, etc. So can get confusing depending on which media sources are used.
Trying to fight against the rights of the majority of the population is a dangerous battle only previously tried by authoritarian dictatorships and similar regimes.
That's definitely not limited to authoritarian dictatorships. Seeing as you're posting from an aussie instance, Whitlam's dismissal comes to mind, along with lockdown laws (whether the majority approved or not).
Also worth mentioning, in Romania, political left and rights seem to be flipped.
The left-right framework just isn't useful. As you've pointed out, it's relative and changes massively between each country.
This video helps explain in more depth and proposes a more useful, effective political model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nPVkpWMH9k
Let the majority do whatever it wants to minorities, says liberal democracy understander.
Democracy is when you can't vote for who represents your views. Even better if you can be shamed into voting for genocide
Democracy is when every popular candidate is banned from the elections
No, democracy is when you are intolerant with the intolerant. Maybe read up on what she says/does before commenting.
oof...
In June 2024, Șoșoacă was elected as a member of the European Parliament. She (...) wore a muzzle over her face as a sign of dissent during Ursula von der Leyen's opening speech. Later, she loudly protested when French MEP Valérie Hayer suggested that abortion rights be included in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. After interrupting Hayer's speech several times, she was escorted outside the chamber.
On 12 December 2021, Șoșoacă was interviewed by Italian reporter Lucia Goracci who was investigating the anti-vaccine movement for Rai 1. After a very tense exchange, Șoșoacă locked the door of her apartment and called the police, stating that someone had entered her office.
Once police had arrived, Șoșoacă asked that all of Goracci's footage be deleted. Goracci said that she and her crew had been held captive by the senator and that she had been punched by Șoșoacă's husband without the police intervening. The stalemate ended after eight hours, following an intervention by the Italian embassy.
In February 2023, she falsely accused the United States of causing the Turkey–Syria earthquakes with a seismic weapon. Șoșoacă used Facebook to spread fake news on the matter, using footage from 2009 falsely claiming to be from 2023.
Police officers from Ilfov County announced that they are investigating and opening a criminal case (...) after several people, including Șoșoacă, commemorated Iron Guard leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu at a wayside cross in Tâncăbești. Some of the participants raised their hands in the Hitler salute.
I blame lack of education and social media algorithms.
It is literally 'power by the people'
Not 'what others decide for the people.'
But lets be honest, it's the not being hostile to Russia that did it.
Can't have that in a US colony where they plan to have the biggest base for their imperialist wars.
And who helped the openly fascists ukranian to power in 2014?
How can you have democracy if you let people vote for a person that says he will remove all political parties? There must be checks and balances that stop you at some point. Also, Romanian law prohibits candidates with ties to fascist or extremist ideologies from participating in elections. That's in the law, introduced by people that were democratically elected.
But lets be honest, it’s the not being hostile to Russia that did it. Can’t have that in a US colony where they plan to have the biggest base for their imperialist wars.
Sure, the US that is now serving up its allies on a silver platter to Putin? His friend Trump is going to revert sanctions any day now for that sweet oil. For power in the Middle East, maybe, but the EU is hopefully going to wake up soon and kick all American bases ASAP.
And who helped the openly fascists ukranian to power in 2014?
Firstly, the Euromaidan protests didn't get hundreds of thousands of people attending just because they got brainwashed by the EU/US. Allegedly, Russia attempted to do the same thing in Romania with Georgescu, and only a few hundred people showed up to protest the decision to take him off the ballot. People in Ukraine felt betrayed when Yanukovych wanted to reject EU and get closer with Russia, a country that has had 146% voter turnout during one of its recent elections. Arguably, maybe the EU is not the best, but its system is way more decentralized than Russia's, allowing better representation of its population and reducing the chance of corruption. At least we don't hear people that are criticizing the government "randomly" falling out of windows here...
Secondly, Poroshenko was openly fascist? Or whom exactly do you mean? If I'm not mistaken, Poroshenko assigned a Jewish person as his prime minister. Or you might be hinting at the Azov Brigade being integrated by him into the national army? What would you do when Russia starts invading your country, though? Either way, you might be right that it is in the benefit of the EU (and perhaps US) to have closer ties with Ukraine, but it goes both ways. Ukraine did not like what happened in Georgia, and wanted more security and pro-democracy allies. That does not mean that the EU made Ukraine into a Nazi puppet state to fight Russia.
Let people decide. What if they want a far right leader? I dont think its good, but its people righ to have the leader they choose.
I dont think its good, but its people right to have the leader they choose.
Well, that's all well and good in an idealistic liberalist abstract, but in reality it often leads to (and Romania's own history did lead to) mass suffering, extermination of minorities, and getting invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union after their fascist leader Codreanu allied with Hitler. So, it's best nipped in the bud, no matter what the majority believe.
Șoșoacă, in fact, is under investigating for commemorating Codreanu in public.
So you are against democracy. Who gets to decide the leaders then? You?
So you are against democracy.
No. I am against the simplistic idealistic approach of just unconditionally allowing the most popular candidates to rule, especially given the surrounding circumstances like mass media propaganda turning this nice idea into a pay-to-win scheme, and the broken implementations in most countries (FPTP, systematic voter disenfranchisement, etc.). Just look at how that turns out in the USA, repeatedly. There are many other ways democracy can be structured. Most 'democractic countries' have extremely broken federal electoral systems which fail to represent the voting people, despite it seeming democratic on the surface with elections.
Who gets to decide the leaders now? If you live in a modernized country and a federal candidate does not have the support of the rich owning class, they won't have much chance at competing with airtime on television and news, support of paid 'influencers' and other celebrities, commercial advertising spots, social media astroturfing campaigns and all the other ways to make a candidate seem important enough to have a chance of winning. The bottom line is, realistically speaking, the only viable candidates at leading on a federal level are those promoted by the ultra-rich, every other candidate and party is fringe. I assert that you effectively having to choose between candidates pre-selected by the owning class is not a valid democracy. Even if you have the right and the freedom to do due diligence and vote for a minor party which is closer to your views, that freedom is ultimately useless in a popularity contest influenced by mass media. That minor party, in real life, never had a fair chance of winning, no matter how popular their policies are.
Yeah welcome to capitalism. But what are you gonna do if not liberal democracy? Its not ideal, but in the real world, what other alternatives you have? And also, idk where you are from, but workers can and do build strong enought parties to compete with the rich
They fully deserved to be invaded by the Soviets.
They had a fascist regime indeed. Don't go crying about the consequences of their own actions.
And you only believe in democracy when it turns out how you want?
Looks like fake democracy to me if they let them participate and then ban them AFTER they win.
It's exactly what the US did when they held 'democratic elections' in Afghanistan.
The Taliban won despite all their meddling after which they annuled it and had to do it over again without them.
What will happen in other countries, let's say if the horrible AfD win in Germany, are they going to ban them then?
Either you ban them before or honor the results.
But that would break the illusion of having a real democracy.
It's clear only centrist results in the narrow overton window are tolerated.
And you think it was better for Georgia when they basically got a French president puppet or that corrupt one who had to flee to fascist ukraine where he had to flee again for doing the same?
They literally started a war with Russia.
And somehow the west doesn't mind extreme right when they are against Russia.
They fully suported them in ukraine, turned out great for them didn't it?
Ok, but there are laws involved here. In Romania, you can't be president if you are under 35 years old, or, among others, if you have a criminal record. The people that were stopped from running for president weren't barred because they went against the mainstream parties, but because they openly promoted personalities that were doing the equivalent of the Holocaust in Romania. This is punishable by law by up to 3 years in jail, and they're being actively investigated.
The lady in this post was previously denied her run in the summer of last year, and she kept quiet about it until now because they probably told her they won't pursue it further if she steps back. She took the deal, probably because she realises that she'd rather keep grifting on Facebook than spend 3 years in jail.
I feel the same.
as long as their program is not against the law extreme right parties can take part everywhere else in Europe.
...the leaders generally get to make the laws, so I don't think legality is a useful safeguard.
It's the same reason you don't let your kids have candy and ice cream for every meal.
Because the people are idiots.
So you're saying you don't think democracy is a good system of governance then?
So i suppose you are the enlighted one who will guide humanity out of stupidity
Well for starters, I don't support far right candidates which sounds like I have a leg up on you at least.
You support authoritarism over the peoples choice, wich kinda makes you far right yourself, but yeah you probably have many legs
authoritarism
Romania has 6 other political parties, ranging from centre-right to far-right. Are you insinuating the people don't have a choice?