On 4 October I spoke to a meeting of the United European Left group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Arriving a bit early, I sat through a presentation by a Moldovan judge, Victoria Sanduta, who was formerly the President of the Association of Judges in Moldova.
She had recently been dismissed, along with other judges, after investigation by a committee set up by the President to vet judges. She said the “vetting” was openly political, and the purpose was to remove any judges who were not “western oriented” and who might query the process in a forthcoming EU referendum and Presidential election.
You might think that this was an operation to clear out legacy judges hanging on since the days of the Iron Curtain. It was not; Victoria Sanduta is quite young. There had been no criticism of her judicial decisions. Her fault was that she was suspected of not supporting the President and lacking “Western orientation”.
Both the EU referendum and Presidential election were remarkably close. The EU referendum was “won” by the pro-EU side with 50.34% of the vote. The Presidential election was “won” by pro-EU President Sandu with 55.35% of the vote.
In both elections, the pro-Western side lost substantially on the votes of those living in Moldova, but won with the addition of hundreds of thousands of votes from the diaspora overseas.
There were 235 overseas voting stations in countries outside of Moldova, the large majority within the EU. There were however only two voting stations in Russia – the country where the majority of the Moldovan diaspora live, over half a million of them. Those voting stations (both in Moscow) were provided with only 5,000 ballot papers each. The official justification for this is that that’s the number of Moldovans living in Moscow itself, the majority being in the south of Russia.
As a result, approximately half a million Moldovans living in Russia were disenfranchised, while hundreds of thousands living in the EU voted.
In total 328,855 Moldovans living outside Moldova voted. Only 9,998 of those were in Russia, where most of the diaspora live.
Almost 300,000 of the permitted diaspora votes were for joining the EU – won with a majority of 10,555 – and for President Sandu – majority 179,309. If votes from the diaspora in Russia had been permitted on an equal footing with votes from the diaspora in the West, the EU would certainly have lost and Sandu would very probably have lost.
It was therefore very useful that Sandu sacked any judge who might entertain a challenge to the outcome.
This naturally recurred to me when I saw that pro-Western judges had disqualified the frontrunner in the neighbouring Romanian general election on the grounds of not being a Russophobe and being popular, which is an offence.
Calin Georgescu is not a supporter of the war in Ukraine. His socially conservative views are popular in Romania but are not EU-friendly. However he is absolutely not the far-right nutter he has been portrayed as across the Western media.
In fact Georgescu is a highly regarded developmental economist and a former United Nations Special Rapporteur. His expertise is in sustainable development, and he is one of those who wishes nations to move away from use of the US dollar as the primary medium of trade.
Georgescu has some views with which I agree and some with which I do not, but that is not the point. He won the first round of the Romanian Presidential Elections with a clear lead, and the decision of the judges of the Constitutional Court to disqualify him is clearly wrong and disproportionate.
The main offence he is accused of is sending lines to take to supporters and asking them to post these on social media. But almost every election candidate in the World nowadays does exactly this. It is further claimed that some of his supporters were paid by Russia, and the Constitutional Court was given evidence which originated from “Western security services” of Russian online campaigning for him.
Note the accusation here is not vote-rigging or electoral fraud. The accusation is of people saying things online to try to persuade voters to vote.
Which is what an election is.
It is the same as the Cambridge Analytica scandal which was so hysterically hyped by the Guardian and their deranged Russophobe Carole Cadwalladr (friend of Christopher Steele, author of the famous fabricated Trump “pee dossier”). There was a scandal, which was that Facebook was selling clients’ personal data to enable better targeting of political adverts.
But Cambridge Analytica was never Russian-funded, and the notion that some Facebook posts, among the massive sea of advertising and campaigning of every kind, had swung the Brexit vote is nonsense clung to by losers who cannot get over being defeated.
Targeted advertising, and the sale of your online data, is a horrible, everyday feature of modern life. All political parties and all causes use it nowadays.
I have no doubt Russia does interfere to try to influence elections overseas. So does every major country. I did it myself for the UK – unsuccessfully in Poland when Kwasniewski was elected and successfully in Ghana when Kufuor was elected. The EU and Western powers fund NGOs and fund journalists all over the world to sway opinion, openly, and covertly Western security services fund “agents of influence”. Let me say it again. I have done it personally.
However it becomes somehow uniquely wrong when Russia does it.
That is not even to mention the absolutely massive role of the Israeli lobby in buying political influence all over the world. That is a far greater threat to democracy than Russia ever is.
I don’t know how Romania’s judges were curated to get the right result, as they were in Moldova, or how they were forced or bribed to change their original decision not to annul the election, just four days later.
I do know that regime change propaganda is in full swing in Georgia, where again the “wrong” party, insufficiently hostile to Russia, had the temerity to win the election. The French President of Georgia is hanging on. Not even large sums of CIA money nor funds channelled through CIA NGOs, nor beautifully printed English language placards, have been able to get enough people out on the streets to make the “colour revolution” demonstrations look convincing.
Georgian opposition supporters rally to protest results of the parliamentary elections that showed a win for the ruling Georgian Dream party, outside the parliament building in central Tbilisi on October 28, 2024. (Photo by Giorgi ARJEVANIDZE / AFP)
Meanwhile back in France, Macron refuses to accept he lost the election and insists on appointing a series of right-wing ministers that cannot possibly get support in the National Assembly.
The pretence of Western Democracy is falling apart, just as the pretence of international law is falling apart, abandoned by the Zionist-bought politicians in their desire to further the genocide and annexation of Gaza.
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You’re absolutely right about democracy being under threat in the West, you could have added the fact that Zelensky declared martial law, while his idiotic Russophobic supporters cheered, and mentioned your own wrongful arrests too.
Victoria Nuland bragged about spending $5 billion dollars on NGO’s in the run up to the Ukrainian coup.
in a December 2013 speech by Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland to the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, a non-governmental agency that promotes democracy in the former Soviet republic.
“Since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, the United States has supported Ukrainians as they build democratic skills and institutions, as they promote civic participation and good governance, all of which are preconditions for Ukraine to achieve its European aspirations,” she said. “We have invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine.” https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/19/facebook-posts/united-states-spent-5-billion-ukraine-anti-governm/
The playbook is quite clear.
Pick some disaffected groups within the target country, students, religious groups, minority groups, opposition groups;
Infiltrate these groups and supply them with plenty of funding, via embassies;
Send in the corrupted NGOs, Amnesty, AIPAC, BBC, to help organise dissent;
Start to flood the MSM with stories about how the disaffected groups are being oppressed, lack of democracy;
Fund (bribe) politicians to enact new laws to favour the disaffected groups and western agendas;
Target elections.
We’ve seen this multiple times and I would suggest it has, and is, being used in the UK currently by Israel and the USA.
Do not forget Germany, the weirdest and most ridiculous of all European “democracies.”
The Germans allowed Genocide Joe to follow through on his threat to destroy their critical infrastructure, their industrial economy and their standard of living, without a peep of protest from any political party or media outlet, whether of the left, right or centre.
What have ordinary Germans gained from this bargain between close allies? Answers on a postcard to the Guardian newspaper, York Way, London N1.
Yes, and on a similar theme:
‘Give me the child and I’ll give you the man …’
“Congress has just passed a new bill that will see the U.S. spend huge sums of money redesigning much of the public school system around the ideology of anti-communism.”
https://www.mintpressnews.com/congress-revives-cold-war-tactics-with-new-anti-communism-school-curriculum/288830/
Similarly:
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/12/14/2025-is-the-un-deadline-for-all-countries-to-integrate-climate-propaganda-into-their-school-curriculum/
The west is brainwashing the young to prevent independent thought and to push approved narratives. In future, citizens will come pre-loaded with the correct newspeak.
I wouldn’t take Toby Young’s word on anything [Daily Sceptic].
And let’s not forget close to home: Johnson’s hard Brexit, the covid lockdowns and the British support for Zelenskiyy’s Ukraine never had any democratic mandate, or even meaningful debates and votes in Parliament. The ruling elite seem to do what they want to; pressure or smear political leaders who are not on board; then peddle their propaganda and threats via the mainstream media and industrial-scale trolling. The public are only ‘allowed’ to debate relatively insignificant or else very divisive matters, while important issues are presented as closed (Labour’s Brexit stance is the classic example, where half the voters, who supported Remain, have no voice in Parliament).
Tom. I wouldn’t worry about a voice in parliament, the remainers cause is safe in the hands of backdoor Starmer.
Take the UK, where you have no choice between parties with policies that are identical. When there was a real choice, a progressive one, it was monstered out of existence by the antisemitism scam and undermined by its own party infiltrated with zionists. By 2024 there was no real choice left. In Romania and Georgia they had enough of a democracy left to actually offer a choice to the electorate. The electorate chose and their choice was then undermined after the election, rather than before. Democracy is dead. Oligarchies presently rule in all of the USA’s “allies”.
Has any politician, other than George Galloway, ever acknowledged that the “Labour anti-semitism crisis” was an unscrupulous establishment scam?
Can it ever be acknowledged?
Abolishing democracy is only the half of it, International law has been replaced by the ‘Rules based order’ i.e, might makes right or so the Neocons think, the US makes the rules, others must follow the orders. The rules change whenever some geopolitical event occurs, like the following….
Israel better get moving it seems Turkey is going to compete with Israel for a bigger share of the pie.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at a rally in Sakarya on the evening of December 13, 2024, announced his intention to include a number of Syrian cities, such as Aleppo, Idlib, Damascus and Raqqa, into Turkey.
“Aleppo, Idlib, Damascus and Raqqa will become our provinces, like Antep, Hatay and Urfa,” – Erdogan said, drawing thunderous applause from the crowd.
This statement immediately caused a wide international resonance. The words of the Turkish leader were called a gross violation of Syria’s sovereignty and a contradiction to international law.
Подробнее на: https://avia-pro.net/news/prezident-turcii-redzhep-erdogan-zayavil-o-namereniyah-okkupirovat-siriyu
Simplicius has an article out on the forthcoming clash between the claims of Turkey and the incursions the IDF are making in Syria, apparently many Syrian Druze tribes do not want to be ruled by head choppers and are appealing to the IDF for protection.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/pieces-begin-slowly-falling-into
The head choppers in Syria are a convenient intermediate way of softening up the process of takover by others, including Turkey and Israel. It seems to me that there will be no conflict between the two. Both are going to be protected by the west. Erdogan has learnt that the US and vassals are unlikely to react to their allies as witnessed by the carte blanche given to Israel. In fact what we have now is a situation where Israel can assasinate anyone in the world without any comeback. This is horrifying to contemplate.
So now that the head choppers are in charge and Israel has completely destroyed Syria’s army and air force, the west can easily now send NATO to save the defenseless Syrians from the head choppers, but of course not Israel. The script has already been written, what Al Jolani doesn’t know yet is that he is a mere cat’s paw who will be disposed of very soon in order to save democracy in Syria and allow Israel more lebenraum.
The placards in neat English say it all. The demonstrations are not aimed at Georgian ordinary voters but at EU and Western press and politicians. But the reason why western democracy has died is that western press is now owned by establishment figures. There is absolute concurrence of views on major subjects. There are no dissenting voices in the press. There is no one to hold power to account and there is even collusion in electing those that the establishment favours because of direction by the oligarch owned press. Without independent press and journalism there is no democracy. At least in Russia they still have the Moscow time, a dissident publisher, who is allowed to criticise.
“The placards in neat English say it all”. I think you are right and I would stress “neat”. I have been following the Georgian media for several months using Google translate. I have to say that Google Georgian – English machine translation does not do the Georgian language justice as much of it comes out as incomprehensible. The placards are certainly not Georgian in design, written from any Georgian angle or reflect any Georgian line of thought.
Richard Medhurst, who is a born Syrian Christian, accuses many Palestinians who he believes have been duped by HTS; he thinks this Syrian take over has been planned for years. How right he is.
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=the+syrian+revolution+was+a+lie++medhurst++youtube
No secret that Medhurst would like to see that other head (and bollock) chopper Bashar Assad back in power.
Pears Morgaine
When the Wests terrorists outfits, are finished turning Syria – into a mad, religious zealots, war torn failed state – the Eye of Sauron will then focus on Africa.
“Syria is set to go through a prolonged period of chaos now that Bashar Assad’s government has fallen, John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, has predicted.”
” Syria is set to go through a prolonged period of chaos.. ”
Gosh that Mearsheimer chap must be a real genius, nobody else could have predicted that. It’s no wonder they made him a Professor. It’s what happens after that period of chaos that will tell us if this revolt has been a real success or not, as it is they’ve rid themselves of a brutal, oppressive dictator and deserve a brief period of celebration. Somebody just has to stop Turkey and Israel carving the place up.
PM
You seem to ignore that the main reason why Syria has gone through a period of turmoil was exactly due to interference from Türkiye and Israel under the umbrella of the great hegemon. So more of the same, only worse, then.
I do understand that Assad was a dictator but that is part of the makeup of the region but it seems that some dictators are more equal than others. Also I have yet to find evidence that the benign interference by the great hegemon has shown much evidence of prosperity and democracy in the target nations but has left a trail of failed states rather curiously related to a shopping list of a certain ME ruler of European origin.
“The pretence of Western Democracy is falling apart”
That’s exactly what it is pretence – take Scotland for example its people have absolutely no route to organising any form of indyref – other than asking a foreign country England if it can hold one – add in that not one party at Holyrood supports Scottish independence – and that half of the parties, are just branch offices of their London HQ’s and are NOT registered with the Electoral Commission as Scottish political parties.
You had your ‘indyref’ and lost. We’re not in the EU anymore where countries are forced to keep having referendums until they come back with the ‘right’ result.
The forces that had your European Court case dismissed without a hearing are the curators you asked about.
Nobody outside of the judicial gene pool of any country has a chance. Nepotism writ large.
There’s no such thing as ‘true democracy’ It’s always somehow managed. But there are better and worse cases of it. I think the worst cases are where it is less obvious because it is so polished, the other countries being more amateurish in their attempts. Of course I could be completely wrong about that as my view of many countries is through the prism of the news media I consume.
The truth is a movable feast so the closest I get is that I should ‘accept nothing, question everything’ and remember that everyone is both lying and telling the truth at the same time, it is disheartening..
Calin Georgescu has publicly stated hero worship for Ion Antonescu, Romania’s Nazi dictator who led Romania into WW2 alongside Nazi Germany and presided over Romania’s Holocaust, sending over 400,000 mainly Jews and Roma to their deaths. Although his love of conspiracy theories regarding COVID, climate change, moon landings and so on might find resonance amongst some posters here most people see them as the ravings of a yes, far right nutter; not someone fit for high office.
His campaign benefitted from €1,000,000 from an unknown source which he didn’t declare and can’t account for. Even then he only pulled in 23% of the vote.
What was somebody saying about democracy?
Georgescu had come in first in the first round of the election. Opinion polls indicated he was going to win decisively in the runoff. The excuse for removing him from the ballot was pathetic. So, yes, removing him from the ballot was antidemocratic.
And he was removed for supremely undemocratic reasons. He wanted to get out of the war for Ukraine, which is very unpopular among Romanians.
Indeed they do – a duo of Three-Word-Slogans, so beloved by advertising agencies employed by our governments for decades now.
Well, you’re absolutely spot on. But I hope you will agree that politics has little to do with what is good, moral, right or legal. Being the art of winning, politics is about using law, morality, and various other types of leverage as a tool to weaken the opponent(s) as push own interests. The Moldovan judge had to go not because she did something wrong, but because she wouldn’t guarantee the win to those in power. Much like Boris Johnson or Theresa May had to go not because they did something wrong or illegal (well, they did but that was irrelevant) but because they became a political liability to the group that they were to represent.
Country borders in Europe get redrawn every few decades. Yet it happens hardly if ever because of nations’ aspirations and political prowess. Rather, it’s because certain groups or interests became so powerful as to be able to decide countries’ fate. The land currently known as Moldova did not get annexed by the USSR in 1940 because its people loved the Soviets; the annexation was decided in the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact.
Today, we have to maintain a veneer of democracy, and so a people’s vote is a must. But do we *really* want the masses to decide on countries’ fate when we all know perfectly well that most people are incapable of seeing more than a few months into the future, and elections more often than not turn into referenda on government policies?
Personally, I see why some people believe that Moldova – it’s population – will be better off as an EU Member State than as a CSTO country, irrespective of the number of Moldovans currently working in Russia. I have seen, and lived in, both blocks, and security considerations aside (Moldova will be a frontline country either way), I’m still convinced that despite its shortcomings, Europe (including the UK) offers a better standard of life, better wages, better social support, better safety and and more personal freedoms than any CSTO country.
To me, the idea that politicians must follow the “will of the people” and that mass media should describe objective truths, sounds a tad idealistic.
But it’s a valid discussion, and thank you for your excellent post.
You may well believe that Moldova might be better off in the EU than the CTSO in a current superficial way but the future may be different.. the west has reached its high point and will be declining. At present it is holding on to this position through economic superiority based on the dollar and a monetary system but with declining manufacturing ability and reliance on immigrants for cheap and unpopular service labour which is causing a lot of political upheaval. Moldova joining the EU will be a tiny state with mere geopolitical value to the EU but no real interest otherwise.
Miko Peled’s speech at the Oxford Union is now available on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9JP1dOncg
When I contemplate what looks like vote-rigging in Moldova, I cannot help but go ‘Tut tut’, and regret it just a bit. Not for too long, mind you, with people fighting for national survival against Russian invaders and bombs not far away in Ukraine, not to mention a whole province of fifth columnists (Transnistria) as well.
If Western democracy is so bad, why not move to Russia and join the Snowdens?
Because Western democracy works and Russia is a dictatorship, where saying ‘war’ will get you behind bars, that’s why. Remember Navalny!
What support did Navalny had amongst his own countrymen? I think they are better judges of whether he was worth anything.
They are not free to judge, that’s why Navalny’s widow is in exile. But she intends to run once Putin is gone:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3z4ydk90vo
I am amazed and heartened that you have picked up on this monstrous injustice. If you had any doubt that the EU was seeking not to persuade but to force EU enlargement then I hope you are now on the right track.
I agree with this and it is not because of the different voting systems which are used to suggest some countries might be more or less democratic than others, it is because western governments on the whole are not acting in the interests of their people any longer but are pursuing agendas of their own and imposing them on their populations. The above examples show this pretty clearly but many more can be easily found.