Finally, another election season arrived, thus European capitals can remind the world (again) about the sacred nature of democracy.
Especially when it ensures that the “right” parties win.
Besides, it seems that a little administrative creativity (disqualify here, label “extremist” there, annul and re-run elsewhere) is perfectly compatible with European values when it comes to sidelining inconvenient competitors — at least until someone draws attention to it.
There were four important elections in the EU during the course of the last twelve months: in Portugal, Germany, Romania and Moldova.
In Portugal, the election was business as usual, but in Moldova, Romania and Germany, we could witness a novel take on democracy: improve the vote by trimming out unwanted competitors.
Moldova – now an official EU candidate – is the latest to show how to keep its ballot “clean.”
Giant EU flags fluttered in Chişinău while the Central Election Commission quietly dropped two pro-Russian parties from the ballot, citing allegedly illicit funding. In rapid succession, all the candidates of the “Patriotic Bloc” were removed, and another pro-Russian party (Moldova Mare) was disqualified for “hidden financing from abroad”.
But never mind that.
After all, a political elite truly dedicated to European values has nothing to fear when it comes to a little administrative “sanitization,” right?
EU officials are delighted: Moldova’s leaders have done their patriotic duty by protecting democracy from foreign influence.
Moldova provides a textbook example of candidate selection: only those with the approved worldview may play.
A rather dangerous game, but alas, not unique to Moldova these days.
In fact, Romania has taken this logic even further.
Late last year its Constitutional Court cancelled the presidential run-off just two days before polling, citing vague claims of foreign meddling.
The surprise front-runner Calin Georgescu – a nationalist with an active TikTok presence – was suddenly stripped of his victory. In March 2025 authorities officially barred Georgescu from running again, and by mid-May they also disqualified populist MEP Diana Șoșoacă, citing an earlier court ban on her for uttering words “contrary to democratic values”. (Interestingly, the very same thing doesn’t disqualify her from sitting in the European Parliament.)
Romania’s patriots in power insisted this was all about protecting democracy; opponents scoffed that it was about choosing which leader should “win” this time.
Thousands of Romanians took to the streets, chanting “this fake government has cut democracy”. Bucharest was agog as the EU-and-NATO member prepared a do-over election in May 2025 – effectively a re-run engineered to produce a more acceptable outcome.
Or, as one observer quipped, the liberal, pro-EU “centrist” finally won the re-run amidst jubilant cheers from Brussels, because ‘Europe has won’.
Critics pointed at Europe’s double standards being exposed.
Even U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance openly mocked the episode: “If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with,” he lectured.
Germany’s approach is a bit more subtle but just as exclusionary.
The domestic intelligence service, BfV formally classified the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as an “extremist” organization in 2025.
This label opened the door to widespread surveillance: the BfV can now tap AfD phones, infiltrate rallies and even bar the party from receiving state campaign funds.
Parliamentarians across the spectrum applauded.
Some have denied the AfD seats on key committees and demanded a ban, arguing that a party with racist views is “a danger to democracy”. The SPD and Greens even filed motions to ask the Constitutional Court to outlaw the AfD.
A senior AfD lawmaker rightly pointed out that this “conversation killer” tactic is partly because the AfD polls at 20 percent and threatens the establishment. Even Elon Musk weighed in, warning that outlawing “Germany’s most popular party” would be “an extreme attack on democracy”.
In practice, the AfD is being “quarantined” from normal politics.
Other parties casually block its members from leadership roles and chamber privileges. Conservatives like Chancellor Merz say banning would be drastic, but the climate is clear: if your opposition party crosses the undefined line of “extremism,” democracy protects itself by cutting out that pesky tumor. If you think this sounds familiar, you might recall how other democracies have handled dissent in the past.
History is replete with this playbook of “democratic” exclusion.
For example, in 1930’s Germany, Hitler did not wait for voters to decide his fate – he banned all other parties by spring 1933, jailing Communists and Social Democrats for good measure.
Chile’s military junta (1973–90) famously outlawed political parties and ruthlessly repressed opponents; as one study notes, Pinochet’s regime “systematically suppressed political parties” and tortured dissidents on an unprecedented scale.
In Peru, in 1992, President Alberto Fujimori simply dissolved Congress by decree and assumed dictatorial powers, a classic (auto)golpe to “save democracy” from gridlock.
Even in the post-Soviet era such tactics persist: Russian courts have recently declared Alexei Navalny’s organizations “extremist” and banned them from elections, effectively silencing the main Kremlin opponent. In each case, the result was the same: elections kept their trappings (ballot, campaigns, TV), but real choice evaporated.
It’s a pattern: once authorities decide which opponents are unacceptable, they invoke “democratic values” to justify locking out any rival ahead of votes.
The double standard couldn’t be clearer.
Europe’s leaders shout about democracy when accusing Turkey or Belarus of repression, yet nod approvingly when “the chosen” do the same trick.
Here’s the punchline.
Brussels appears obsessed with immediate outcomes — keep the pro-European lists winning, keep NATO’s flank steady, secure short-term geopolitical gains.
Fine.
But there’s a catch that should alarm any serious democrat: once you normalize excluding rivals for being “wrong” or “foreign-funded” or “extremist,” you cannot credibly object when Ankara, Moscow, or anybody else does precisely the same.
Turkey has long accused the EU of double standards when Europe points fingers about democratic backsliding. That charge will sound less like bravado and more like a lecture on European hypocrisy if Brussels keeps picking winners at home. Accusations of foreign influence or financing mean an especially thin ice: something that can be used against any political party.
“In effect, by 2025 Europe has already crossed the anti-democracy Rubicon, as analysts at Heritage Institute warned.
In the end, Europe’s moral high ground on democracy may prove as sturdy as a sandcastle.
We may celebrate the results in Moldova — and judging by the numbers, they likely could have been achieved without such heavy-handed interference — but the real question is whether we will regret the method in the long run.
On the long run, it might be extremely dangerous to undermine the very foundations of our parliamentary democracy. No win of an anti-EU party can derail a country’s trajectory, if the societies have a more or less clear pro-EU vision. We should believe in the system’s ability to self-correct on the next election.
Unless, of course the population believes in different principles.
So, let’s applaud the new (unfortunately not that new and not that rare) and improved European method of safeguarding democracy: cancel uncomfortable votes, disqualify unwelcome candidates, label inconvenient parties as dangerous, and then declare victory for values.
Short-term, tidy, and politically expedient.
Long-term? The EU’s leaders might have opened Pandora’s Box: legal precedents, administrative tools and political norms that others will borrow, then adapt — and who gets to complain when they do?
By then, the monster they’ve fed will have grown teeth — and it will bite its own master first.
