THE STATE OF DEMOCRACY AFTER 25 YEARS Neighbouring Slovakia has not been immune from similar problems, where Prime Minister Robert Fico has also harnessed the reactionary attitude of post-crisis Europe.14 Fico was able to engineer the 2011 downfall of the previous centre-right government by withholding and then delivering votes from his Smer–sociálna demokracia (Direction–Social Democracy, hereafter Smer) party on EU measures to combat the Eurozone crisis. In the following election, Fico won a majority in parliament. At the same time, the opposition was boxed out of political decision- making, and appointments in the judiciary became increasingly politicised. Although Fico was defeated in his country’s 2014 presidential election, his campaign centred on falsely accusing his opponent – Andrej Kiska – of being a member of the Church of Scientology.15 In Romania, meanwhile, the transition to democracy has been marred by the abuse of power by national and regional officials. In 2012, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta attempted a coup, by overturning established procedures and stripping away constitutional checks and balances, in an effort to unseat his country’s president, Traian Băsescu. In July of that year, he issued emergency decrees suspending the Constitutional Court’s right of veto in impeachment proceedings and arranged for the Romanian parliament to vote against the President in an unconstitutional ‘no confidence’ motion, leading to the President’s suspension from office.16 Press reports suggested that Ponta supporters wanted Băsescu removed so as to allow attempts at judicial reform to be abandoned and trials against corruption to be delayed.17 Though he failed in that particular endeavour, Ponta (leader of the formerly communist Social Democratic Party) continues to intimidate his critics and undermine democratic institutions. He seeks to shield his party members from criminal investigation – by extending the immunity of parliamentarians, through the enactment of a new criminal code – and undermines judicial independence, by publicly condemning decisions.18 In his country’s 2014 presidential elections, Ponta first oversaw the distribution of an insufficient number of voting sections and ballot boxes in European cities to cater for the Romanian diaspora, and then refused to supply any more resources after the election went to a run-off. 3.2 Attacks on Media Across Central and Eastern Europe, local oligarchs and investment groups – some directly connected to their country’s political leadership – are taking newspapers and other media 19 companies under their control, prompting deep concerns about press freedom. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has staged an autocratic crackdown on the nation’s 20 21 press, which Freedom House now ranks as only ‘partly free’. Beyond the outright state 14 Csaky, Z. and Sylvana Kolaczkowska, ‘The state of Europe’s democracy 25 years after the Wall’, EU Observer, 05 November 2014, available at: http://euobserver.com/opinion/126383. 15 ‘Slovakia: A new President’, The Economist, 19 June 2014, available at: http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2014/06/slovakia. 16 Tismaneanu, V., ‘Democracy on the Brink: A Coup Attempt Fails in Romania’, World Affairs Journal, January/February 2013, available at: http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/democracy-brink-coup-attempt-fails-romania. 17 See: Verseck, K., ‘Basescu-Absetzung in Rumänien: Mit dem Präsidenten kippt auch der Rechtsstaat’, Der Spiegel, 29 July 2014, available at: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/referendum-in-rumaenien-praesidenten-basescu-droht-die-absetzung-a-846305.html. 18 ‘Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council: On Progress in Romania under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism’, European Commission (2012), available at: http://ec.europa.eu/cvm/docs/com_2012_410_en.pdf, p. 3. 19 Lyman, R., ‘Oligarchs of Eastern Europe Scoop Up Stakes in Media Companies’, The New York Times, 26 November 2014, available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/world/oligarchs-of-eastern-europe-scoop-up-stakes-in-media-companies.html?_r=1. 20 Howard, P., ‘Hungary’s Crackdown on the Press’, The New York Times, 08 September 2014, available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/opinion/hungarys-crackdown-on-the-press.html. 6