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Everyone knows what happened last December in Romania. An EU and NATO member country annuled its own presidential elections, sparking shock for commentators all over the world. The reasons have been subjected to intense national and international debate and Romania’s democracy rating has been demoted by think tanks from “flawed democracy” to a “hybrid regime”. However, not everybody knows all that has happened in the months prior and following this incident. These are the facets of the issue we will be examining today, since they paint a larger picture than the annulment of the presidential runoff itself. And whatever one’s opinion over the decision to cancel the aforementioned elections, it is hard to not look at the larger picture and see a worrisome trend.
Before diving into the facts themselves, it is important to note that a fierce battle has erupted – not over the said facts, but over how the story to be told.
On one side, system-friendly parties like PSD and PNL (the two oldest center-left and center-right parties, that now govern together ala SPD-CDU in Germany) are scrambling to control the damage. Their strategy is textbook: deny, deflect, and reframe. According to them, Romania is not backsliding, it is merely “adapting” to the complex challenges of the modern world. Summary judicial changes? Necessary “adjustments” to ensure stability. Censorship concerns? “Protecting the electoral process from misinformation.” Alarming deficits and institutional captures? “Temporary setbacks” on an otherwise glorious European journey.
They rely heavily on tired slogans about European integration, NATO commitments, and economic growth projections, hoping that waving the EU flag vigorously enough will drown out the warnings from Brussels itself. Whenever the European Commission or independent watchdogs point out obvious abuses, the government’s loyalists frame it as “misinterpretations” or “unfair criticism of a developing democracy.” In other words: “Trust us, not your own eyes.”
On the other side, populist movements are seizing the moment to radicalize public sentiment even further, claiming that the current governing coalition (which has, indeed, governed for the last 30 years in various formulas) is constructing an authoritarian state meant to impose the “globalist agenda” and progressive policies and silence it’s critics while syphoning as much funds as possible from those who contribute to the budget of the country.
Whichever side wins the upcoming re-run of the presidential elections will also win control of the narrative and may well decide whether Romania takes the difficult road back to genuine democracy or slides deeper into a hybrid regime, where elections are held, rights are promised, but nothing real ever changes. Because the true problem, the steady dismantling of democratic checks and balances, is already present.
Financial Gaslighting of Population and Partners
In 2009, during the height of the global financial collapse, Romania had a budget deficit of 7.2% of GDP. It wasn’t pretty, but the world was on fire, so Romanians had an excuse. By 2010, things were stabilizing somewhat, and the deficit dropped to 6.5%. Painful, but manageable.
Fast forward to today, under the brilliant stewardship of Ex-President Klaus Iohannis, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, and their left-right Frankenstein of a coalition (PSD–PNL), the deficit has ballooned to a jaw-dropping 9.28%. You read that right: almost 10% of GDP, the worst figure Romania has seen since World War II leveled half of Europe. Only back then, at least there was the excuse of bombs and tanks rolling through cities.
But wait, it gets worse. The Romanian government didn’t just mismanage finances. No, that would have been too honest. They also lied—boldly, repeatedly, shamelessly—to external partners like the European Commission.
In 2023, they proudly reported a deficit of 5.68%. The European Commission, armed with calculators and a basic understanding of accounting, said, “Actually, it’s 6.5%.” In 2024, the government claimed it was 8.65%. The real number? 9.28%. At this point, the Commission probably isn’t even angry; they’re just tired of being lied to and then having to show a manipulated population the true digits of how their country stands.
Merging Elections Together
When it comes to the democratic process, the first signs of arbitrary use of power were not the events that transpired in December 2024. The first “gotcha” moment for the opposition (be it progressive or conservative leaning) came in May with the decision to hold local elections on the same day as the European elections.
At first glance, the move was wrapped in polite excuses. Authorities claimed everything was about “efficiency” and “cost reduction.” Why burden the taxpayer with two separate elections when you could handle both in one day? It sounded reasonable, but only until you scratch beneath the surface.
In reality, merging the elections dramatically tilted the playing field. Local elections tend to favor the incumbent parties – the mayors, councilors, and local bosses who control jobs, contracts, and networks of influence in Romania’s towns and villages. European elections, meanwhile, traditionally give smaller parties, independent candidates, and reformist movements a chance to break through, since the national stakes are higher and the voting is less tribal.
By forcing both votes to happen at once, the system bundled local loyalty with national politics. People going to the polls to reelect their local mayor were much more likely to tick the same box for that mayor’s party at the European level, even if they were unhappy with the national government. Local clientelism spilled into what should have been a broader, European-minded political choice. This confusion was not a bug—it was a feature.
The big parties, especially PSD and PNL, know that rural Romania still operates through deeply entrenched loyalty networks. A mayor can “deliver” votes not just for himself, but for the entire party list. By merging the elections, PSD and PNL effectively locked in a huge base of support for the European elections before any debate could even happen. European issues that were debated in other member states prior to the vote took a backseat in the media, in favor of local subjects.
In short, merging the elections wasn’t about saving money. It was about saving power.
Democracy is not just about voting. It’s about informed, deliberate choice. It’s about giving citizens a clear understanding of what’s at stake, and who stands for what. By fusing two different elections into one, Romania’s ruling parties deliberately muddied those waters, turning the most basic democratic act into a calculated exercise in manipulation.
It was legal.
It was clever.
But it was profoundly anti-democratic.
Further Subjugation of State Institutions
Romanian institutions (especially those in which the members are government-appointed, which is a significant percentage of them) have never been known to be epitomes of impartiality. However, they have also not been known to be as subservient as they can be seen today. While everyone’s been distracted by inflation, rising food prices and existential dread, key state institutions have been quietly and very deliberately captured in totality.
First up: the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR), the 9 political appointees who also canceled the first presidential runoff.
In a breathtaking move, they decided that it’s perfectly fine for intelligence officers to moonlight as judges and prosecutors. Because if there’s one thing democracy loves, it’s secret service agents deciding who goes to jail and who gets acquitted.
Then there’s the Electoral Bureau (BEC). Apparently, they’ve decided that free speech is a little too free these days. Citing a very creative interpretation of European regulations, they started censoring social media. Posts are deleted, content is blocked, narratives are “managed.” All in the name of “electoral fairness,” of course. Because nothing says “fair election” quite like scrubbing the internet clean of your oppositions political opinions.
And just when you think it can’t get any more cartoonishly corrupt, enter Sebastian Ghiță—a prodigal son of Romanian politics, a man who managed to flee the country while under investigation for massive grafts and somehow still pick up billion-lei government contracts. Ghiță’s company is now responsible for managing Romania’s government cloud infrastructure. Translation: the country’s most sensitive databases are in the hands of a guy who reportedly has some ties to Moscow.
All of these, under the guidance or direct command of the governing coalition. At this point, you might be wondering: Is this still incompetence, or is it something worse? Congratulations, you’re asking the right question.
But Why Now?
Up until 2019 the two old parties in Romania, the Social Democrats (stemming directly from the dead carcass of the Communist Party) and The Liberals (reinstated in 1990 but later merging with another direct descendent of the communist regime – The Democratic Party) had no external threats to their hegemony. They would “fight” between themselves on TV, but behind closed doors they would make the necessary deals and oversee that the path to reform is as slow as it can possibly be. But something changed before the start of the 2020’s. Financed by various private entities, alternatives appeared. The first breakthrough was USR (the Union for Saving Romania), a socially progressive but fiscally right-wing party. Then came the populist-conservative AUR (the Alliance for Uniting Romanians). In the shadow of these two major breakthroughs, smaller populist parties managed to ascend to parliament as well.
The grand coalition of “system-friendly” parties barely managed to form a government after the 2024 parliamentary elections, with only 7 votes above the required 50%+1. It may sound comfortable for those reading in countries with smaller sized parliaments, but the Romanian homologue institution is formed of somewhat close to 600 deputies and senators. Moreover, the 50%+7 they achieved was not the result of their own efforts alone. PSD and PNL needed to bring in to the fold the party for ethnic Hungarians (UDMR). Even that was not enough to hold on to the levers of power, the difference makers being the MPs of all (18) the other ethnic minorities in Romania (who automatically receive a seat without having to de jure win an election, because the law says so).
The thinner the thread that held the “system-friendly” parties connected to power became, the more aggressive their attitude towards opponents (and democratic checks and balances) became in turn. You might be thinking, “Surely people will notice, right?” Maybe. But gaslighting works because it makes you doubt your own sanity. It whispers, “Maybe things aren’t that bad. Maybe this is just politics. Maybe you’re overreacting.” Meanwhile, the walls close in.
Every deleted post, every court ruling written by someone with an intelligence service badge hidden in their coat, every “revised” economic figure erodes one more layer of trust. Until eventually, you stop believing in anything except what you’re told. Or even worse, not believing anything anymore, disconnecting entirely from politics.
Romania’s leaders are counting on that. They’re counting on fatigue. On resignation. On the slow numbing of outrage until compliance becomes second nature.
But there’s a difference between being fooled and choosing to stay fooled. And right now, Romania is standing at that crossroads. On the 4th of May, the first round of the new presidential elections will go down, and two weeks later from that, someone will emerge as the new president of this hybrid democracy. As it always is in politics, fresh faces are battling the old ones and, given how close some of these faces are in the polls, the future is uncertain.
What matters most is whether the person who will be elected president, upon finding this weapon of arbitrariness in their office, will choose to use it as well or to set it aside, in favor of returning to the foundations of a true democracy