*House

Senate was yesterday I think

What a whimsical ass death

US complaining about not honouring treaties

Not news per se,but new drone attack dropped on the Ukraine border

Romanian presidential elections today. I'm gonna try to make a small effort post about the main candidates and what their deal is.

I'm gonna start listing them from most likely to least likely to become president.

Romania is a semi presidential republic, so not its not something like the German system, where who the president is doesn't really matter, with the president being in charge of appointing the prime minister, representing the country abroad and imposing a state of emergency (this was done during covid). Currently the main political issues being discussed are the rising costs for basic goods, with the prices for groceries exploding after the pandemic, obviously, the war in Ukraine, happening right at the border, us trying to get into Schengen and the possible involvement, as always, of the Secret Services in the electoral process. Out of the nations of the Eastern EU members, Romania seems like the most stable politically, but that's only because it is one of the most undemocratic "democracies" in the EU, being ruled by the same group of people, but under different names since the "Revolution". All candidates are Atlantophiles, some less, some to the point of parody, all right, from center to far right and all socially conservative.

So, lets start with the most likely one to win.

The Buzău Pretzel Seller: Marcel Ciolacu, party affiliation: PSD (Social Democratic Party)

Ciolacu is the incumbent prime minister of Romania and is the representative of the most influential political formation of post communist Romania, which traces its lineage to the FSN (Front of National Salvation), the entity formed by the members of the communist party who ousted Ceaușescu in 1989 and took control of the country. This formation was headed by Ion Iliescu and ruled Romania unchallenged for the duration of the 90s. I will go over the history of each party in the post I will make next Sunday, when the parliamentary elections will take place, so this is just to give you an idea of who's backing each candidate. Long story short, this pollical group is the main force in Romanian politics, with them switching names over the 90s and 2000s and now going under the name of PSD.

Ciolacu- the person and his policy proposals

Prior to the Revolution, he was a worker at a cooperative. No one really knows what he did during the revolution, but he fought fiercely to get and keep his Revolutionary certificate. (Context: Having a revolutionary certificate entitles you to a monthly stipend and grating property previously owned by the state, basically the state gives you land for being a good "revolutionary"). I'm not gonna bother listing the numerous corruption scandals each candidate was involved in (one less than the others, but that's about it). had ties to previous party leaders that were convicted on charges of corruption, yadda, yadda. His "proposals" are the standard socdem promises that never get fulfilled, less taxes for the poor, bigger pensions. Also the "reindustrialization" of Romania. All candidates have a pro-Atlanticist foreign policy, so I'm not gonna mention foreign policy beyond this point.

Romanian Hillary Clinton: Elena Lasconi, party affiliation: USR (Save Romania Union)

Newest leader of the Save Romania party, a group formed in 2016 with the purpose to create a new party that wasn't connected to the old corrupt ones, a youth movement that had no real direction, no real identity beyond "We want change" and "Corruption bad", had some initial success, being the third largest political party for a time, and being part of the government during the pandemic, but he since split and decayed into multiple parties and now its kind of a husk of what it was. Its lack of identity was its downfall and its now captured by libertarian atlanticists. Basically, it the most pro-US compromised party, vexingly, many of the diaspora and youth will vote for it.

Lasconi- the person

She was a journalist, became the mayor of her town, and was put in charge of the corpse of the party this year. Hippy aunt vibes, the only somewhat socially progressive candidate on account of having a progressive daughter, though she did vote yes on the referendum for the traditional definition of the family and got a lot of shit from it from her daughter and now supports civil partnerships, but not marriage. Also hosted one of those "Ancient Aliens" type shows in the 2000s. Had some Hillary type "Pokemon to the Polls" type stunts where she went to music festivals. Her proposals are vile, barring the socially progressive ones, some highlights include school choice type stuff and making the making the healthcare system more similar to the one in America.

Bob the Builder: George Simion, party allegiance: AUR (Alliance for the Unification of Romanians)

The AFD of Romania, formed on the centenary of the Great Union, on the first of December 2019, it is the party of the vilest chuds, courting with legionarism (the Legion of the Archangel Michael was the Romanian Nazi Party during WW2 and played a great role in the unfolding of the Romanian participation in the Holocaust) and general fascism. It is the most reactionary party, anti EU, but pro NATO, has ties with the Republicans and Orban. Often accused of being Russian agents, had a split in 2021 with the pro Russsian and still antisemitic part of the party, was antimask and it was formed from a number of movements that wanted Moldova to be unified with Romania, as well as what remained of the ultranationalist Great Romania Party of the 2000s.

Simion-the person

Started out as an anti-Iliescu protester, got into business, did some tax evasion. Not allowed to enter Ukraine or Moldova, most likely on the Myrotvorets kill list. His wedding in 2022 was done after the model of the wedding of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the father of Romanian fascism and the founder of the Legion. His policy proposals are what you'd expect. The reason he's Bob the Builder is because he has some bullshit plan about building new homes only priced at 35.000 euros. Cutting social benefits "for those who don't need them", Churches being able to administer social services and other horrible shit.

KGB NATO-ist: Mircea Geoană, independent

Deputy Secretary General of NATO, habitual loser. Was a prominent member of PSD, being the presidential candidate in 2009, lost, and then was kicked out of the party later, in 2011 when he tried to run again. Came from a well connected family in the communist regime, became part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs just three months after the revolution and the youngest ambassador to the US. Comically corrupt politician, heavily tied to Iliescu, running on an anticorruption campaign. Heavily funded by someone, no one knows who. He plagiarized the speeches of Clinton and Bush in his doctorate thesis and his daughter copied the speech of Trumps niece when she was asked why she supports him. Also strangely has some AI grift policies, wanting to institute AI in classrooms as teaching aides. Erdogan-like foreign policy, rabidly pro-NATO, but has also gone out to say the war in Ukraine should end with Ukraine ceding territories. Also accused of being in Russia's pocket.

The "Hero" of Nasiriyah: Nicolae Ciucă, party allegiance: PNL (National Liberal Party)

The right splinter of the FSN, mirror to the "left" PSD, they are the republicans to the PSD's democrats. Have now fallen off hard, on account of the current liberal president being comically corrupt. Klaus Iohannis, the "ficus" , named so because of how slow he speaks and how little he does, did fuck all during his presidency and mainly took luxury trips overseas in private jets and financed himself a nice villa using public funds. A party dead in the water, now polling at below 10%, when they were once second after PSD, their electoral campaign has been a disaster, bringing the dumbest people to debates, Ciucă included.

Ciucă-the person

The Romanian Petr Pavel, participated in all the NATO imperialist interventions of the 21st century, that being his claim to fame, became a general, rose meteorically as Minister of Defense in 2019, then PM just two years later, he was instrumental in helping Iohannis build his villa and was one of the architects of the current coalition government, which I like to call the reunited FSN, as its made up of both the PSD and PNL. He pledged in 2018 to not get into politics, the following year, he did, the myth around him playing any role during the battle of Nasiriyah was thoroughly debunked, he will most likely get kicked out of his own party come next year and he is barely literate.

Other candidates

Kelemen Hunor, party allegiance: UDMR (Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania)

Ethnic minority party, usually gets around 5%, mostly has a role in getting coalitions over the electoral threshold.

George Călinescu, independent

Old friend of Simion, Russophile reactionary.

Ana Birchall, independent

Cristian Diaconescu, independent

Two old friends of Geoană, irrelevant, corrupt. Also formerly part of PSD.

Cristian Terheș, independent

Another reactionary with ties to AUR.

And that should be it. I may use this post to post updates later in the day about the results. Also, I took most of this information from a video by Silviu Faiăr, a liberal youtuber.

Video link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvlQWvm3sdw

Tires,most likely

Israelis would be,Jews wouldn't

Moldovan elections final results: Sandu 55.33% to Stoianoglo 44.67% with a 54.34 voter turnout

Diaspora came to the "rescue" again,it seems. My initial prediction of it being a 10% diff seems to have come true, mostly based on the fact this happened last time: initial opposition lead,only for the diaspora to quash it.

So yeah, Eastern Europe is a diasporacracy,where the voices of those who don't even live there matter more than those who do. By the way,if you're tired of American electorialisn,you may have to look forward to me doing some Romanian electorialism come the 24th,seeing as we'll have our own presidential elections.

We're a semiparliamentary republic,so these don't matter as much,but the prime minister does have to be approved by the president,so it's still not insignificant. But I should warn you, it'll be a shitfest of pro-NATO bootlickers,but maybe some useful analysis will come of it,who knows?

My hope is that I'll give a good enough overview and maybe even show you all a bit of the circus going on (we had a local tv station,that was bought by CNN some years ago do "town hall" style debates with the candidates and then a debate where each contender sent two supporters to debate with the other person's picks,it was a circus,with the journos trying to mimic actual journalism but failing,the most pointless questions and more,I'll see if I can find a way to make them accessible to the English speakers here) and show you a glimpse of the hellscape that is Romanian politics

Hexbearian standard English

God damn the English language is an endless etymological treasure trove of racism

Lol did not expect this

Maybe my little tirade played a part in prompting this?

Anyhow,looks like the referrendum will pass,almost all the votes are counted,with a very,very narrow lead for YES,so my silly little comment about hope kinda looks stupid now. My apologies to those tagged,it was the middle of the night here and I'd just woken up,and the diaspora vote wasn't counted yet .

Maybe it can be contested,but I'm not holding out any hope,looks like it's gonna be another Lucy football moment for the romance speakers of the east. Sad,but this is the post Soviet world we live in.

Also,I will reiterate my point,this is purely a Romanian endeavor,there is almost nothing in there to loot that either isn't in Pridniestrovie or hasnt already been looted other than some vineyards and farmland. It is the quintessential Eastern European agrarian nation,with it's land consisting of flatlands and plateaus. As far as I recall it is also bereft of any significant underground resources,so it's no Donbass. Most I can say is that it has maybe some potential for green energy,but let's be honest,who's gonna build that and with what money? You can't even say that they're an untapped labor market, Moldovans have been using their joint Romanian citizenships to work for pennies on the dollar in the EU for almost two decades now. It truly is the shining example of post Soviet decay and the power games played by the West in this region.

Edit:Looks like it's joever,50.46 to 49.54,with a 13.596 vote difference

Depends on a multitude of factors

• whether or not they're born in Romania
• whether or not they're born after the Revolution
• family's social position during communism (working class, apparatchik or other)
• family's social position now (working class, bourgeois or peasants) and whether they moved with them or are still in Romania
• (less so but still important) opinion on Roma, many dislike communism because the Roma were treated marginally better then they are now
• (less important) which part of Romania they're from (east is poor, Transylvania is richer and has more wannabe euros, think western lib mindset or worst case scenario Iron Guard fetishists, this applies for Bucharest too)

I'm Romanian,living in Romania, but I will admit my knowledge of the communist period doesn't go far from what we're taught in school and some less anti communist sources, but it's not much, so I won't be giving out any takes on what we had more than, some good,some bad

Pre Ceausescu mostly alright, considering WW2 had ended, initial Ceausescu ok, started to go far into nationalism, spilt from the Warsaw Pact wasn't good, tried to act more independently,ended up somewhat cozying to US, attempted industrialization financed with IMF loans-very bad move, led to austerity, this is where most criticism of the regime comes,seeing as there were actual shortages and people had to wait in line for basic goods this being done to pay off the loans, ironically the debt was paid in full in early 1989, too little too late, legitimate discontent used as fig leaf for military coup backed by western interests in December,start of shock therapy and abysmal poverty,and till now mostly corruption scandals and trying to recover from that period

Plenty to criticize (draconian abortion ban, abysmal orphanage conditions that scarred a generation of kids, excesses like the People's Palace that replaced an entire old quarter of Bucharest, poorly trying to copy the real popularity the Kim family had in Korea, nationalistic historical revisionism, obsessive focus on the dacian side of the Romanian ethnogenesis as the core of Romanian identity, trying to appeal to both sides in Israel and Palestine), but overall created the basis of what we have today (we still depend on the housing they built and the infrastructure from those times) and took a mostly illiterate and poorly developed nation into the modern age with all the growing pains that process involves

That's the extent of what I can say, I would welcome more well read commrades to correct and add to my very limited summary and provide additional context that could help you

To close off, you should expect this to be a lengthy process, I know from experience how deep the anticommunism runs in Romanians, this having to do with it being imposed by the USSR for a good reason, but still tapping into more or less two centuries worth of previous attempts by Tzarist Russia to add Romania to itself led people to believe the communist period was a continuation of previous Russian imperialism, and the previous things I mentioned, and this goes doubly for those who left,as they were the ones most disillusioned by the failure of capitalism to save post communist Romania, leading them to develop an inferiority complex and blame the "communist heritage" the country had

Oh,and as a final addition,if they make any mention of the "Social Democratic" party that is in power in a coalition with the liberals at the moment as being some "red plague", dismiss that out of hand

Both big right wing parties in Romania at the moment have their roots in the "Front of National Salvation" in the nineties, a political party created by those who orchestrated the military coup and were in power for most of the nineties, they are as communist as Labor is, though forced to be somewhat less rabid in the neoliberalism department due to the circumstances present here,they are peoples favorite thing to point to and pretend the PCR(communist party) is still alive and to blame for all of modern Romania's ills (corruption mostly)