More elections

There's a parliamentary election this weekend in Romania.  It'll be rubbish.  There is nobody I would trust in Romanian politics, and all of the parties are basically a bunch of corrupt self-obsessed wankers who will happily carry on screwing the people of this country in the pursuit of their own egos and their own little pieces of power.

There's a summary which tells you more or less all you need to know on Craig Turp's Bucharest Life

Just a couple of additions though: Anyone from outside Romania who reads reports of the elections this coming weekend (either before or after) and reads the description of the likely-to-win USL coalition as "centre left" should take this designation with a massive pinch of salt. they've always been a bunch of corrupt socially illiberal populists at the best of times, but now they even include the loathesome racist homophobic bigot Gigi Becali under their banner. This is a man who would make Jean Marie le Pen look centrist. Any coalition with him in is NOT in any way left, centre left, or even centre anything.

Here in Hungaro-world, there is a second Hungarian party standing (for the first time as I understand it in a national election), the Erdelyi Magyar Neppart, which is, as far as I can work out, an electoral vehicle for Laszlo Tokes who never seems to get on with anyone and flits from party to party trying to find one which can accommodate his ego.

What this means electorally, of course is that if they take something like 1.5% of the national vote – or more accurately approximately 25% of the Hungarian vote – they will push the UDMR below the 5% threshhold, which will make a huge difference to the makeup of the parliament.