November 15, 2024 - 2:00pm
A dangerous trend is emerging across Western Europe. Conventions and rules that are absolutely critical to the proper functioning of a democracy are being bent, a development that is progressively eroding popular trust in governments.
Europeans have been reminded of this trend in recent days, as a French prosecutor has demanded jail time and ban on political activities for Marine Le Pen of the National Rally (RN). Currently on trial alongside 24 others for embezzling EU funds, Le Pen is widely considered to be in a good position to win France’s 2027 presidential election. If she is found guilty of these charges, however, she will not be allowed to run.
Le Pen is alleged to have hired assistants for roles in the European Parliament who ended up doing political work for the RN. The economic damage was reportedly around €3 million, of which the party has already returned €1 million, while also claiming that this should not be seen as an admission of wrongful conduct.
Similar treatment is being meted out to Right-wing parties and politicians across the continent. In the case of Austria, it came with the suspension of an 80-year-old informal rule dictating that the party which receives the most votes is allowed to form a government, after the Right-wing Freedom Party won elections last month. Meanwhile in Germany, a debate has been revived about banning the Alternative for Germany (AfD) before federal elections in February. In other words: the exclusion of the second most popular party in the country from participating in the political process.
None of this bodes well for the future of democracy in Europe, because a system that tries to ban instead of engage with the substance of what surging populist parties are demanding is doomed to fail. After all, it is not the charismatic personalities of the AfD’s Alice Weidel or the RN’s Le Pen which explain their parties’ popularity. Instead, they are rising in the polls because they have dared to touch on the topics which the establishment parties have for decades refused to discuss: migration, cultural decline, and economic stagnation.
In Germany and France, we see parallel attempts to keep the most popular challengers to the status quo off the ballot, but there is significant risk that these attempts will backfire. The German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician Marco Wanderwitz wants to submit a law banning the AfD before Christmas, in the hopes that it could still take effect before federal elections early next year.
Although the likelihood of the law being passed is slim, there is more to the story. The head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (the German equivalent of MI5), Thomas Haldenwang, has been removed from his post and will campaign for a seat in parliament — as a member of Wanderwitz’s CDU. The very person responsible for painting the AfD as a “far-Right” party, far from being an impartial civil servant, seemingly had a political agenda — a claim the AfD has made for months. Originally, Haldenwang did not even intend to resign from his position, and it was only after Interior Minister Nancy Faeser found out about his ambitions that she decided to let him go.
The optics are disastrous, as even the Left-leaning public broadcaster ZDF had to admit. Haldenwang was supposed to publish an assessment of the AfD before the end of the year, which could be described fairly as a member of the CDU influencing the decision as to whether its strongest competitor should have a right to run in elections. Unsurprisingly, the AfD is already using this as a campaign theme, sensing that it could prove effective.
Optics clearly matter, then, and the same is true of the RN trial in France. While there may be a valid legal case, it will be hard to avoid the impression that this is a blatant attempt to keep Le Pen from the presidency at any cost. Corruption is a serious matter, but banning the most popular politician in France due to salary payments to parliamentary assistants will not dent her popularity; if anything, it might boost her standing. After all, the legal cases against Donald Trump fired up his base to the point that he became practically invincible during the Republican primaries — and now he is President-elect.
European leaders must be very careful that they do not push voters in the same way, as there is a growing sense among the public that establishment forces are trying to tip the political scales. If this impression is continuously reinforced, at some point people will make their anger felt.
Ralph Schoellhammer is assistant professor of International Relations at Webster University, Vienna.
Raphfel
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SubscribeHmm… our political so-called ‘elites’ seem to pride themselves on their cleverness, seeking to position themselves above their populations, i.e. their electorates; perhaps even seeking to position themselves beyond their electorates.
Given what’s just transpired in the US, have they been watching? Or if they have, has that made them even more desperate to push their popular oppositions out of the race, whilst they still think they have a chance?
It transpires that actually, our ‘elites’ are pretty stupid. They’re acting more and more like an Ancien Regime, and we know what happened there.
I have thought this for many years – they have to be thick to do the job. They can obviously read, they read about culture and maybe history. But they are so intellectually challenged that they believe what a book says – in theory – without considering alternative theories or the practicalities of implementing a theory. They are defeated by small practical problems. In my area, the Welsh Assembly is even worse than two-tier’s mob in Westminster.
Wonderful way to get your own way! Just pay the money and “prove” those you don’t agree with are acting illegally.
Will Lawfare come back to bite the Democrats in the States? No idea, yet, but after one side starts the shenanigans then the other side can have a go.
In the UK the Lawfare after Boris tried to prorogue Parliament was mad. Parliament had all the power they needed to stop/hinder/change this but that would have involved taking responsibility and resulted in a vote of no confidence in the Government. Not what “they” wanted.
These two cases in France and Germany, for me at least, seem to be part of the win at all costs mentality. But also abrogating responsibility for the democratically elected to state their case and then win or lose on a vote of the electorate.
I do think that “the State” is now more powerful than the various Parliaments and elected bodies. In the EU, UK and various European supposed democracies. The USA? Too early to tell what “legal” push back Trump will find himself facing. I don’t think that a nominal majority in the Senate and House will stop “Lawfare”.
Europe and Britain are in big trouble. I am very fearful of what will happen over the course of the next decade. You can’t keep implementing policies that harm your citizens and remove any democratic accountability for those decisions.
I am no longer sure what ‘democracy’ means. The Welsh Assembly is a good example. They had devolution, a few meetings and then they vote to call themselves the Senedd – the most pretentious thing I have ever heard. They are voted in repeated by a majority and then proceed to ignore that majority in favour of a never ending host of vociferous minority issues. Is that democracy?
Why does the majority keep voting for people who are trying to punish them precisely because they are the majority? Why is it evil to be a majority?
The Swiss system seems better but it would be argued that it was bad for minorities. Does it matter if the evil majority overrules the virtuous minorities?
It seems clear to me that any party which has a manifesto of 10 key issues and vows to govern in favour of the majority by implementing these priorities against a fixed timescale, would win any election.
What is democracy?
“What is democracy” you ask – a nuisance to be subverted and ignored seems to be an increasingly common view nowadays.
Good questions, but the oft-asked question is: why do these people keep getting voted in? Is it tradition, lack of – or fear of – alternatives, conformity to media output? Something else?
We’ve just seen what’s happened in the US. One could say: that’s democracy. Just look at the turnarounds in the way things are being reported since that outcome. So what’s stopping the Welsh (or Scots, or English) from voting in an alternative way of doing things; one that responds more directly to the needs and wishes of the majority?
Fear? Or caution!
If those voting for the politicians supported by regime media were to believe what they’re reading – fear!
The Dems campaign was based almost entirely around TDS. The US electorate “begged to differ”.
In case of uk, electoral system.
Yes, people voted for Reform in many cases as a protest against “Conservatives” ignoring what voters wanted.
That let Labour in, which policies are even more disastrous for the country snd against wishes of majority than “Conservative” one.
The “WAG” is only interested in the opinions of NGOs, certainly not the electorate.
Sure Le Pen might be guilty of this but I bet all the mainstream politicians are just as guilty but they won’t, of course, be prosecuted. So it is lawfare.
Please Cut this populist nonsense. Here are a few of the many examples of prominent french politicians from mainstream parties (centre right and left) having been convicted and received ineligibility sentences in the last decade:
Jérôme Cahuzac
Brice Hortefeux
Jacques Chirac
Roland Dumas
Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres
Jean-Noël Guérini
Claude Guéant
Gaston Flosse
François Fillon
Charles Pasqua
André Tulard
Jean-Jacques Urvoas
Jean-Paul Huchon
Sylvie Goulard
Patrick Balkany
The EU is an unelected bureaucratic empire. The pesky nations within it are increasingly DINOs, democracy in name only. This trend will make it easier and easier for America to leave Eutope to its own self annihilation. America is not yet out of the woods, but Europe’s rulers seemingly miss no opportunity to stomp down on the actual voters with contrived and obvious faux crimes as their excuse. And the DINO disease has long since become well established in Britan, by the way.
Need you ask?