The liberal democracy of the Western countries has a growing appearance of a minimalist democracy. At the heart of the definition would be respect for changes in government through elections. The authoritarian variant of this was called competitive authoritarianism by political scientists Levitsky and Way. The competition is yes, but it is very unbalanced, because the person in charge uses all the resources of the state in his favor and hinders the victory of the opposition.

In countries like these, they often defend authoritarian measures, saying that their civil society is being held hostage by foreign interests. They are often not without reason, for in their countries the intervention of the West is shameless. Against them, however, even if they sometimes take understandable measures under the pretext of defending the national interest, they are often used as an excuse to undermine authoritarianism.

We're not better off in the West. Our civil society is not held hostage by the Chinese, the Russians or the Iranians, but the cultural hegemony of the West has a slight fissure: The Internet. This has brought our liberal democracies closer to competitive authoritarianism, with the use of censorship, persecution of dissidents and, if necessary, external intervention as an excuse for authoritarian decisions.

Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market until 2024, has suggested that the EU has suspended the Romanian elections for foreign intervention and would be willing to do the same in Germany if necessary.

In the presidential elections in Romania on 24 November 2024, Călin Georgescu, the far-right sovereign candidate, won unexpectedly in the first round. In the west, all the alarms went off. Certainly not because of its conservative nationalism, this and the fact that it is the heir of the fascists does not cause problems in the EU, as long as you are a fan of NATO (see Giorgia Meloni), but because of its warm Atlanticist attitude and its willingness to achieve peace with Russia.

NATO has begun the construction of its largest military base in Europe in Romania. It is expected to be 3,000 hectares wide and accommodate 10,000 people. That being said, it is not surprising that the Romanian judges annulled the elections and cancelled the second round. The excuse? Assisted by TikTok. Apparently, there were many fake accounts managed from abroad promoting Georgescu's candidacy. All the accusations were directed, of course, to Moscow. Later, however, we learned that the TikTok campaign was paid for by the National Liberal Party (members of the European People’s Party and the party of the current president). In other words, the president’s party paid for a social media campaign in favor of Georgescu and then the intelligence services used this campaign to suspend the elections as an excuse to demonstrate “foreign interference.”

It is unbelievable that the news has had little impact on us. In recent years we have become accustomed to social media censorship and media censorship, but also to the growing persecution of freedom of expression. Most people don’t give a damn if they’re not the media and/or influencers who pass on their opinions or vision. We learned a long time ago that the multinationals and the financial world are holding our democracies hostage, but now it will be at least three years since the appearance of the new bright protagonist in this kidnapping: geopolitics. Today it's the far right, tomorrow it can be the left, and it wouldn't be the first time, otherwise remember Operation Gladio.