Democracy & participation

After 1989 Romania built a real democracy: competitive elections, rotation of power, a plural press, EU and NATO membership. The independent indices that measure democratic quality climbed steadily for the first decade and a half. The second half of the story is less comfortable: for roughly a decade the same series have been drifting down. The slide is slow but consistent: pressure on the press, weakened oversight institutions, falling public trust.

Two recent moments belong on this page, stated plainly. In December 2024 the Constitutional Court annulled the presidential election in its entirety, citing an online manipulation campaign and foreign interference, an EU first. The vote was rerun in May 2025 with record turnout. Interpretations still differ: for some, a legitimate defence of the electoral process; for others, a dangerous precedent. Both readings have serious proponents, and the data here does not settle the dispute. The event itself, though, says something about the fragility of trust. The second fact: parliamentary-election turnout has fallen from nearly 80% in 1990 to under a third in 2020, the most measurable sign of the distance between citizens and politics.