I have already written and posted twice about the most calamitous constitutional and political crisis afflicting Romania since December 1989 when communism in the former communist state collapsed.
The crisis was brought about by the shocking ruling of Romania’s Constitutional Court which vacated the results of the presidential elections of November 24. The ruling came down on December 6 when the Court claimed, falsely, that there was “foreign interference” in the elections, a claim never substantiated even in the slightest. The frontrunner, an independent, scored his top position with the aid of social media, having been very active on Tik Tok. His rather unorthodox approach took by surprise and irritated the political establishment which ran a traditional campaign.
The Court exceeded its constitutional authority. Hardly anyone inside or outside Romania disagrees with this premise. The run-off between the top two contenders was scheduled for December 8, but the December 6 ruling annihilated the whole election process. Initially, the runoff election was scheduled to start on December 6, a Friday, and continue over three days, but only for Romanian citizens residing abroad. It is estimated that 4 million Romanian citizens reside outside of Romania, mostly in Western Europe. Since polling stations outside Romania were limited in number, to fully accommodate the vote of potentially millions of citizens, it was decided that for Romanians living abroad voting would occur over three days.
On December 6 Romanians abroad began to vote. More than 53 000 of them already voted and thousands were also standing in line to vote. The afternoon of December 6 the Constitutional Court invalidated the first round of the presidential election and, instantaneously, also halted the voting then underway in the diaspora in the runoff. As a result, 53 000 votes already cast were instantly invalidated and the citizens waiting in line to vote were simply told to go home. They could not vote.
In so acting, Romania’s Constitutional Court disenfranchised 53 000 citizens, plus the more than 9 million citizens who voted in the presidential election of November 24. Romania has 18 million eligible voters.
And so, in the span of 12 days, Romania’s electorate was disenfranchised, and Romania joined the ranks of the likes of Venezuela and Nicaragua. That the presidential elections in Venezuela were rigged last year no one doubts. And yet, the Supreme Court in Venezuela validated the rigged elections. And in Nicaragua, strong man Daniel Ortega keeps on winning the presidency since 2007 in spite of evidence that elections there are also rigged.
But Romania is not Venezuela or Nicaragua. It is a European country rooted in the continent’s democratic culture and constitutional traditions. But now, its Constitutional Court had gone rogue. The President of the Constitutional Court is a communist. Now 70, in 1989 when Romanians revolted against communism and won, he was 35. Previously, he had been a member of the Romanian Communist Party. The country’s current president, Klaus Iohannis is also a former member of the Romanian Communist Party, having taught, during the communist era, Marxism-Leninism and scientific socialism to high school students.
Notably, Iohannis’ presidential term ended on December 21 but the ruling of the Constitutional Court invalidating the presidential elections is extending his stay in power indefinitely beyond the constitutionally mandated term of 5 years. If you are puzzled or alarmed by all this, you are not alone. All Romanian citizens are.
Imagine something of this nature happening in the United States or Great Britain. This nightmarish scenario would be impossible in either country. People would revolt and bring about a Second American Revolution in the US or a Second Glorious Revolution in Great Britain. Romanians are not descending in the streets for fear that the Government would call the demonstrators a threat to democracy and impose a state of emergency.
Disenfranchisement is real in Romania. It is reminiscent of the Jim Crow era in the United States when Southern States adopted laws designed to prevent the Negro vote. In the course of time, the United States Supreme Court rendered all such laws unconstitutional holding on to the sacredness of the right to vote. And yet, the Constitutional Court in Romania is deliberately disenfranchising the country’s population. In a very arbitrary manner and without the 18 million people with the right to vote to be able to do anything about it.
In the meanwhile, Brussels is silent, when it shouldn’t be. It keeps on harping on Hungary and Poland, claiming that laws and policies in those two countries undermine democracy. But nowhere, and never, in the history of the European Union, beginning with its incipient stages in the early 50s, has anything this egregious happened in any member state. Which proves what many in the EU think: Brussels is as corrupt an institution as is Romania’s Constitutional Court.
Thus disenfranchised and alienated, Romania’s electorate breathlessly awaits good news.