Elections in Ukraine and Romania: There is no democracy
In 1864 Abraham Lincoln stood for reelection. He thought he might lose, mostly because the war was going badly, although the war started to turn in the Union’s favor as the election approached.
Lincoln was challenged by cashiered General George B. McClellan. Lincoln fired him after the 1862 midterm elections, mainly because McClellan refused to pursue Lee's army after the Battle of Antietam.
McClellan ran on a platform of working a political deal with the Confederacy, although McClellan said that he did not support that part of the platform.
Lincoln introduced absentee ballots and for the first time allowed members of the army, marines and navy to vote in the election.
In the end, Lincoln scored a huge victory in the Presidential election. He would be assassinated on April 15, 1865, a little more than a month after he was inaugurated for his second Presidential term.
Woodrow Wilson was reelected in 1916, before the US joined the allies in World War 1. Elections in 1918 were to reelect the Congress (House plus one third of the Senate and 9 special case seats). The outcome was a significant Republican victory, gaining a majority of 6 seats in the Senate and 24 seats in the House. Eventually in 1919 this would impact Wilson's support for ratifying the Versailles Treaty. That required a two thirds vote under the Advice and Consent clause of the US Constitution. It ended up in two votes, one with amendments (for 39, against 55) and the other with no amendments (38 for and 53 against).
In 1945 Britain held parliamentary elections. There were no elections during the war under what became known as the Prolongation Act. Under that act, the major political parties agreed not to run any candidates. While the British did not hold elections in wartime, they both (a) had a consensus to not do so and (b) the British government was itself a coalition including the major parties. The only "rub" was that the wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill, was not elected to office originally as prime minister, but was appointed by his party after the collapse of Neville Chamberlain's government in September, 1939. Chamberlain's "peace in our time" turned out to be war in Europe after the invasion of Poland by Hitler. It was Chamberlain who declared war on Germany on September 3rd, 1939, two days after Poland was invaded.’
In the 1945 post European war election (the Pacific war was still ongoing), Clement Atlee and the Labor Party defeated Churchill and the Tories.
On the 24th of February, 2022 Ukraine declared martial law. The law passed by the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, ruled out elections while martial law was in force.
This was the second time martial law was declared. The first time, in 2018, was for only 30 days.
As Volodymyr Zelensky's political allies control the Rada, the martial law decree could easily be modified or withdrawn. However it is kept in effect.
In February the martial law decree was again extended for another 30 days.
Meanwhile most of the political opponents of Zelensky either are in jail, under some form of house arrest, or have fled the country. This is vastly different from how things were done in the US and UK in past years.
It is quite true that pro-Nazi persons were arrested in the US and UK, and some of them went to trial. But for the most part the political parties in the country stayed as they were, and in both countries proved patriotic.
Overall in Europe different states are interfering in elections in different ways. By far the most obviously egregious is Romania. Romania had just arrested presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, charged him with various crimes including undermining the Romanian constitution, prevented him from registering in the coming Presidential elections (starting May 8), and denied him access to all social media and to the Romanian and foreign press. Meanwhile his campaign offices have been raided and documents seized without any form of notice or due process.
Thus we have an important NATO country where the US has put in place its most advanced air defense system, called AEGIS Ashore, and where spy planes and ocean patrolling over the Black Sea take place every day.
The Russians also believe that the AEGIS Ashore system can also launch nuclear-tipped Tomahawk cruise missiles, as the launchers of AEGIS support both air intercept missiles and Tomahawks.
The key point is that Romania no longer makes any pretense of an operating democratic regime, nor does Ukraine.
NATO claims that it is defending democratic values. But this is nonsense when both Ukraine and Romania have nothing whatsoever to do with democratic values when they fear the popular vote.
There is no sound reason for Europe to oppose free and fair elections, both in NATO and in countries NATO supports, especially Ukraine.
Zelensky allegedly is on his way to Washington to sign a minerals deal. It would be wise for President Trump to tell him the US expects Ukraine to hold elections soon, and to give the US assurances the elections will be fair.
Sadly European leaders won’t like Trump doing this.
As for Romania, Washington needs to speak out against the current Romanian government and its anti-democratic behavior.
"But the election was a necessity.
We can not have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us."
-A. Lincoln
Of course neither Ukraine nor Romania are democracies, even as they proclaim themselves and are loudly proclaimed to be such.
The only question is whether the orders from these governments are obeyed. For law is meaningless. Enforcement is the only thing that matters.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, 94% of Crimeans voted for independence from Ukraine.
Six months later the Kiev government amended their constitution so that the independence of any region required a majority vote in the whole of former Soviet Ukraine.
Maybe all of the Russian Federation should vote on the independence of rump Ukraine?