The Romanian state activated the emergency brake and stopped the train called Romania just when it risked becoming a second-hand train attached to the tail of the Trans-Siberian.
Emergency brakes are not ideal during a comfortable train ride: they involve jerking, they produce strong sensations for all the passengers and especially those with heart problems. They generate panic, raise a multitude of questions and speculation begins.
This is the first phase, the immediate reaction, the emotional hyperventilation.
Fortunately, the first phase is soon followed by one in which reason puts order in your thoughts. Because: a) you receive relevant information, and b) you become aware of the danger, you learn to accept the initial discomfort once it becomes clear that a tragedy has just been avoided.
Of course, the second phase is also followed by a third phase – self-questioning, criminal investigations and, theoretically, the amending flawed procedures and/or the removal of the human factors that had assisted them.
With this in mind, Romania pulled the emergency brake on Friday afternoon. Inevitably, Romanians and the Romanian state will go through all three phases.
The emergency brake, pulled by the Constitutional Court (CCR) (with all the jerks and anguish that go with it), averted the national tragedy of being captured overnight by the historically hostile Moscow.
To understand the CCR decision, it is necessary to look not only at the decision, but also at the broader context, a context that underwent a radical redefinition on Wednesday evening, when the Supreme Defense Council declassified information about the hybrid war unleashed by the Russians against the Romanians, in order to make its Trojan horse president.
The CSAT announcement was a vital turning point. It provides the necessary legitimacy for the CCR’s decision. It bluntly outlines that its decision was at least in the spirit of the law.
It is true, a few days earlier, the Constitutional Court had validated the first round of presidential elections. However, it is also true that at that time neither the Court nor the public had the information that shed a completely different light on things.
The way it was conceived, the CCR is an institution that is responsible for observing the electoral procedure. In order for the election result to be legal and legitimate, the election procedure must not be flawed.
But the CSAT revelations introduced new variables into the electoral, legal and geopolitical equation – clear evidence that a foreign power, Russia, tried a hostile takeover of Romania, brutally intervening in the presidential election (it is now obvious that it also interfered in the parliamentary election).
Under these circumstances, the CCR would have been at fault if it had not reassessed its previous decision, to validate the first round. That decision had been made based on different information.
What kind of state would it be if, although it has critical information about the country’s sovereignty, remains paralyzed and clings to previous decisions, based on information that has since been proven to be obsolete?
With all its sins, therefore, the Constitutional Court has done its duty this time. Superlatively!
As a first sign that it acted soundly, the Bucharest Stock Exchange rose almost instantaneously, after having recorded losses of over 10 billion lei in just a few days due to statements made by the pro-Russian candidate, Calin Georgescu.
The former American ambassador to Bucharest, who came to the post in Donald Trump’s first term, also welcomed the court’s intervention. “The CCR saved Romania from the Russians,” Adrian Zuckerman said.
The truth is that the evidence of Russia’s support for Calin Georgescu, presented by the CSAT press release on Wednesday, was overwhelming, it was blatant.
It is evidence whose authenticity is assumed by the Romanian state, files have been declassified. And looking at the broader context, it can be seen that even the European Parliament and the European Commission have got involved, aiming their guns at the Chinese network of influence and spread of the Beijing-Moscow axis, TikTok, influence.
The argument above is the first dimension of the case of the annulment of the presidential elections in Romania.
I would say that there are three in total. So, let’s now move on with the second one.
And this second dimension has the following question at its core:
- Didn’t the CCR create a dangerous precedent, in the sense that next time, when there’s another election, other Terheși (presidential candidate Terhes who contested the election) may appear and those appeals will lead to the elections being canceled (or other organizations that publicly demand this)?
It’s a common sense question and it needs to be clarified now.
Well, I think that the CCR did not set such a precedent. Again, the key here is also the context:
- These elections were annulled on the basis of new, extraordinary, concrete, verifiable information, that we partially previously exposed in press investigations.
- These elections were annulled by the CCR amid a foreign attack on Romania’s sovereignty.
- And, I repeat, there was an exceptional intervention by the CSAT, which declassified secret information collected by the secret services.
Therefore, any future measure to annul a future election, by the CCR, will not be able to be based on less than that. The CCR will not be able to invoke less serious facts than those invoked on December 6, 2024.
Then, there is another detail: the CCR did not take this measure in the blink of an eye.
Initially, so before the CSAT, the CCR had validated the first round. On Thursday, the day after the CSAT’s intervention, the CCR judges gathered, but hesitated to cancel the elections. They met again on Friday and only on Friday did they no longer hesitate.
You simply cannot reproach the CCR for taking this extraordinary decision too lightly, superficially and without analysis. It waited, literally, until the last moment: voting had already started in certain corners of the diaspora, there were only 16-17 hours left until the end of the electoral campaign.
The CCR made an extraordinary decision dictated by extraordinary times. It took it based on extraordinary documentation.
There is indeed a precedent set on Friday by the CCR for the upcoming elections, but this precedent is completely different from the one that some voices in the media and politics were tempted to condemn. And the precedent set is that, in the next elections, the reason for such a step, such as the cancellation of the election, will have to be concrete and will have a yardstick.
Finally, the third dimension of the case of the annulment of the presidential vote now remains to be addressed.
A candidate like Călin Georgescu should have had his way to submitting his candidacy blocked in advance. His character and connections were known to the competent institutions for years.
There was plenty of information about that, the CSAT press release says.
It is possible that the weaknesses were not at the grassroots but were circulated between intelligence institutions and had reached the spheres of the strategic decisions.
A serious and ruthless analysis of the what lead a candidate subservient to a foreign power to reach the presidential runoff, is self-evident. An in-depth analysis is needed, an analysis down to the smallest details.
I would like to note one more fact. The Republic of Moldova has also gone through crucial elections, since Russia’s war in Ukraine, as such since Moscow’s interference in Chisinau politics has intensified, even though it was already huge.
But the Republic of Moldova – although more fragile than Romania, although more vulnerable to the Russians than we are, although it is neither in the EU nor in NATO – managed to avoid the terrible impasse in which Romania was trapped, one which Romania only overcame by acting decisively at the last moment.
How could it be done across the Prut (the river that divides Romania and Moldova), and not this side of the Prut?
Well, a possible answer can be given by the following:
- From 2023 and throughout 2024, months before the presidential election and the pro-EU referendum in the Republic of Moldova, news constantly appeared regarding all kinds of police operations and in cooperation with domestic and foreign services.
- Operations to dismantle smaller or larger pro-Russian networks, arrests, tracing the circulation of Moscow’s money through various carriers to various beneficiaries, fraudulent schemes, politicians caught in the act, military and former soldiers involved in Russia’s games.
All this news was not just for a week or a few days, but for months on end. And in Romania, in the months leading up to the parliamentary and presidential elections, we have not witnessed such a storm of dismantling of pro-Russian networks, although pro-Russian networks are clearly active at the highest level.
In the end, the Russian operations to recapture the Moldovan state, through the electoral process, failed, as shown by the result at the polls and the absence of the need for measures such as canceling elections.
It is time for Romania to adopt the example of the Republic of Moldova – because this is vital. Because, I have no doubt, it is still capable of doing that and has substantial support from strategic partners.
- PS: It would not be excluded or unhealthy to assess banning Călin Georgescu from running. But also a series of arrests in Georgescu’s entourage – him, his wife, his legionary-paramilitary comrades. It is also necessary to analyze and measure accordingly everything that the sovereignist-Putinist current in Romania entails – from AUR, to SOS and POT (three nationalist parties). The Social Democratic Party must also get rid of its Russian-Chinese links. Radical measures are also needed in the sphere of online media infrastructure (websites, radios, televisions and social networks), a sphere that openly allows Russian propaganda (and whose funds are not necessarily crystal clear.) Last but not least, a general cleansing is required within the Romanian Orthodox Church. It can start with the pro-Russian wing built by Teodosie, but it must not be limited to it. Finally, general cleanliness is needed in the area of reservists in the army and secret services.
