EU Elections 2019: Are You Happy with the Results in Your Country?

[Florestan]

I am extremely happy, actually.

The ruling coalition has been crushningly defeated. The main government party, the Social-Democratic Party (PSD, nominally socialist, member of the European Socialist Party; actually a nationalist, populist, euroskeptic and utterly corrupt party) came second with 23% (a huge fall from the 48% they took 2 years ago in national elections, more on this below). Their ally, ALDE (nominally liberal, member of ALDE; actually a nationalist, populist, virulently anti-EU and utterly corrupt party) did not even make the necessary amount of votes for getting into the EU Parliament. The National Liberal Party (conservative liberal, pro-EU, member of the European People's Party, which I voted) came first with 28%. Alliance 2020 (a grouping of 2 recently formed social liberal, pro-EU parties) came third with 22%. All in all, the staunchly pro-EU parties won about 65%. The turnout was about 50%. Romania is officially one of the most pro-EU countries in the whole union.

But there is more. The war that the PSD-ALDE coalition has been aggressively waged against the independence of justice and the rule of law since 2016 --- and which was actually the main reason that the people voted massively against them --- came to a grinding halt yesterday when Liviu Dragnea, PSD's strongman and president of the lower house of the parliament, the Romanian equivalent to Viktor Orban, received a 3-and-a-half-year prison sentence for corruption, despite huge pressure and threatens to the judges. He's already been incarcerated. The socialists are groggy and they will probably never recover their former power and influence --- and I am only too happy, I've been waiting 30 years for this moment.

So yes, I'm dellighted by the Romanian results of the EU elections. How about you?

[vandermolen]

No

[Rinaldo]

Not really. The ruling party (ANO) won, run by our PM, a former communist secret police agent turned oligarch. Currently investigated for fraud, he already replaced the justice minister for not being loyal enough, causing some uproar in the major cities but ANO support in the rural areas is still strong.

The only positive (from my point of view, obviously) is the defeat of our version of brexiteers – they didn't even reach the threshold necessary for an election payout, which makes their election slogan – "We'll leave (the EU) whithout paying" – deliciously ironic.

Good to hear Romania have fared better. Another Orban is the last thing this continent needs.

[pjme]

Belgium: no!
Another Black sunday.
Flanders: huge victory for rightwing populist parties (apparently helped by the massive influence of social media), defeat for the "traditional parties. A fairly good result for the Green party.
Wallonia: victory for Ecolo(Green) and the Socialists.
Forming a federal government will be ... very, very, very difficult.

[Florestan]

Forming a federal government will be ... very, very, very difficult.

Nihil novum sub sole Belgiae. 

[pjme]

[Florestan]

Not really. The ruling party (ANO) won, run by our PM, a former communist secret police agent turned oligarch. Currently investigated for fraud, he already replaced the justice minister for not being loyal enough, causing some uproar in the major cities but ANO support in the rural areas is still strong.

I feel you, I really do. Mutatis mutandis, the situation in Romania is / was strikingly similar. Socialists's support comes mainly from (1) poor rural areas, (2) people with little formal education, if any at all, and (3) the age group 60+ : almost 50% of their voters fit in at least one of these categories, which actually greatly overlap. The socialists (originally ex-communists) ruled the country for 22 out of the 30 years which passed since 1989 and their policies have always been the same: keep the poor poor, the uneducated uneducated and the underdeveloped areas underdeveloped because they could easily manipulate such people into voting them by shameless electoral bribes and virulent nationalistic, xenophobic and lately anti-EU rhetoric. They never lost an election, in the sense that they were always defeated by a coalition of parties, not by a single party --- until last Sunday, when the centrist National Liberal Party singlehandedly defeated them (and incidentally won the elections after 82 years). Of course, a big factor in this defeat --- they are their historical low with 22% --- has been the turn out. Whenever the turn out has been under 30 %, they won; whenever the turnout has been over 40%, they lost. The problem has always been that their hardcore constituency* was very disciplined and voted massively, while the centrist or center-right constituency was lazy and anarchic --- but the last 2 and a half years were too much even for the most indifferent of the latter: justice has been under constant pressure and attack, shameful legislation has been passed in favor of corrupt politicians and the general level of governmental and local corruption, especially in respect with European funds, is appalling. Hopefully, the trend which manifested itself in 2014 at the presiidential elections and just two days ago at the EU elections --- that of youngsters, educated and urban people voting massively will continue; it's the only chance to ensure that this utterly pernicious Social-Democratic Party will never get back into full power.

(*which are almost fanatic and completely unshakable in their convictions: my own father-in-law and all his brothers-in-law are of this type; my mother-in-law is somehow more maleable, not because she's permeable to rational arguments, though, but because my wife manages to influence her sometimes.)


And there is more: there are 3.5 millions Romanians working abroad. The percentage of them who vote socialists is under 3% --- therefore the socialists have always done everything in their power to prevent their voting, such as not setting up enough voting booths and stubbornly refusing to legislate the online vote or the vote by mail. You might have watched in the news the very long and humiliating and frustrating queues that our expats have to endure in order to exercise their legal right to vote, and many if not most of them are not able to do it.

No, really, the Romanian socialists are iredeemably bad, shameful and corrupt, and I'm very surprised that the European Socialist Party still accepts them as their members instead of expelling them for sheer, utterly incompatibility with their professed values.

What I am very pleased with is the fact that despite huge pressures, threats and direct attacks, the Romanian justice has bravely preserved its hard gained independence and the rule of law in Romania is up and running. I am quite confident for the future.

Good to hear Romania have fared better. Another Orban is the last thing this continent needs.

Actually, by comparing Dragnea to Orban I did an injustice to Orban, who at least has some notable economic, social and infrastructure achievements for his country, which is hardly the case  of the (fortunately) former Romanian strongman.

And one last thing. I don't think EU is any kind of paradise. There are lots of things I dislike and rather see reformed or trends I'd rather see reverted, but Romania's membership in the EU has been hugely beneficial for us, economically, socially, judicially, politically, educationally and culturally. A strong, united EU is essential not only for our future development along these lines, but for our very existence as a nation. For Romania, the only real alternaative to EU is being swallowed again in Russia's sphere of influence --- see Moldavia. Therefore, despite all its shortcomings, I am staunchly pro-EU and I firmly believe that its benefits are more numerous, and greater, than its disadvantages. (Ditto for NATO, while we're at it.)

[71 dB]

The Green Party did very well in Finland and increased their number of MEPs from 1 to 2*, so I am not complaning...

* if Brexit happens, Finland gets one additional MEP and it goes to the Green Party so it would be 3 MEPs.