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@superkret You mean who is going to support who in the runoff? Well, by the looks of it, it looks like all the democratic forces will either back Ciolacu or nobody. Simion and Georgescu will likely back each other, whoever comes in second, so it will basically look like Germany, sure.

If Lasconi gets in the 2nd round instead, I’m expecting most of the other candidates to back her. Including the whole right (democratic or far-right - just to spite PSD, but there can be surprises as well).

Just to get an idea, PSD never really lost a single election in its entire history. In the last (soon to be) 35 years since the 1989 Revolution, it spent the biggest time in power.

PSD is the direct descendant of the former Communist Party, so it has a huge apparatus all over the country. There’s basically not a single village where PSD is not present. This is why in the 2000 elections it got a landslide result against far-right Corneliu Vadim Tudor. And this scenario might happen again.

@superkret

So what happens in the second? Does every citizen go vote again between the 2 front-runners?

Yes. If the first candidate doesn’t get a majority of the votes (which is likely to happen), there is a runoff between the first two.

If the “lower” candidates all announced support for one of the 3 at the top, what would the likely percentage be then?

I don’t think that would happen, as the ballots just closed, but I don’t think that could have happened either. It is also a risky thing to do altogether. One of the candidates announced right in the middle of the election debate that he would pull out of the race, but I saw a jump for the Liberals instead. There are no less than 13 (yes, lucky number) candidates on the list, so things can get pretty volatile.

@theangriestbird A bit anxious tbh, I did not expect Călin Georgescu to take up these many votes. However, the political offer as a whole is pretty poor. USR, while being a reformist party and with people with good intention, are pretty bad at communicating, and Lasconi makes no exception. Having her run against PSD and the various far-right offers makes it the only agreeable option, at least for me.

Having watched this documentary about Iohannis and his last 10 years as a president makes me worry that if Lasconi and USR are not getting a majority of the seats in the parliament at the next elections, or are at least not able to form a coalition with other democratic forces (right-wing or not), we might be witnessing the last free (at least to a certain extent) elections in this country. That is, if these won’t be frauded either until the end of the count.

@thegreenguy It doesn’t, but if you’re lucky, your city might have a transit app itself (mine does). Even if chances are that it’s not open source either, you’ll still be able to cut your dependency to Google to a certain extent.

@tootnbuns

@Kit It’s just a different experience to see the picture on a bigger screen.

@t3rmit3 I was talking about the current elections. I do not think that that guy’s act was a specific act of revenge for the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol, especially if that guy was a Republican registered voter. Otherwise, he could have acted sooner instead of waiting for a presidential term to finish. The guy’s attempt was specifically due to Trump’s current nomination as a candidate. That’s why I asked you how did it already happen during this election process, not in the past.

Yes, absolutely.

I think you might not be that different from a Republican on this one :) even though for a different reason.

I think you’ve got the question backwards. States are the worst instigators of violence against marginalized, smaller, and weaker groups

States are also the ones using public money to fund healthcare centers, centers for people in need (eldery, women escaping abusive relationships, unwanted children), they are also making the public space more accessible for people with disabilities, they are providing public transport options for people unable to ensure themselves this option, sometimes even providing means of communications (through mail for example). Of course, you could point out that there is more work to be done in some cases and in many countries, but it’s still an effort in the right direction and, imo, these sometimes provide better options than letting individuals work by themselves in order to solve these problems.

If you’d ask me, I would feel safer in this regard when accessing these services provided by the state instead of relying on a fringe (sometimes) armed group, looking to gain power for themselves. But that’s just me, I guess…

@t3rmit3 My server is dead today, so I cannot reply from my main account.

Obviously, yes? […]

I gasped for a moment, but yes, we are talking about internal violence committed by a group of people inside that country.

Hmm, you mean like has already happened?

How exactly has it already happened, more specifically, during this election? Did anyone try to shoot Biden or any Democrat in this campaign?

Assassinations are an action that occurs to protect a given status quo.

This is highly debatable. The nazis, fascists, legionnaires did a lot of politically motivated crimes in order to get in power. Does that make them the protectors of the status quo? What about various terrorist organizations around the world? What about people trying to kill Hitler? Anyway, I won’t go on with this because it is more of a separate discussion.

But do you think that a state that doesn’t have this ability of protecting its own power and its own monopoly on violence would be a safer, freer and more just to its people than a state that has it? Do you think that such a state could protect marginalized, smaller and weaker groups better than a state that has this monopoly of violence?

@baatliwala Now I feel old…

@PhlubbaDubba @tardigrada You still need email for pretty much most services. You need to log in? Create an account using your email and password. Need to work somewhere? A phone number is essential, but the employers will also use your email to message you if you cannot be reached on the phone (happened to me once) or when sending video call invites.

WhatsApp is ubiquitous when it comes to chatting, but for more elaborate communications, email still rules.

@Skua Pretty low, I think, as Romarm is just another state enterprise whose main purpose is to justify the paychecks of some politically appointed directors of the governing coalition, while the factories themselves contain old machinery, are in conservation (official lingo for “abandoned”) or sold to scrap to make room for real estate projects or shopping centers. They did however encounter a surge in demand lately since the war began. I am sure that there are other post-communist states that can contribute with the production too, though, so we can have it at an acceptable level.

@Steve It does sound geeky, but yes, it is technically correct to say about a year that is the hottest year on record.

And the fact you pointed that every single year becomes the hottest year on record makes it even more dangerous and shows that we need to take proper measures.

@remington But how can 13 men fit into that tiny space of 1?

@chonglibloodsport well, for them it is their country. They had all the right in the world to return and fight for a change just as they had all the right to stay inside their adoptive countries in a relative safety (provided the Kremlin would not assassinate them there). They chose the former, probably thinking they would make a bigger impact inside the country. Well, turns it wasn’t such a great idea.

@Five