Decisions are not easy to make, positive options are few in number, and the lesser evil prevails.
However, truly the worst thing is not to go out and vote. It is probably the only certainty. Because you will leave the decision entirely in the hands of those who might prefer exactly what scares/outrages/disgusts you the most.
I will not tell you who you should vote for, nor will I tell you who I will vote for.
Not because I have something to hide. But because the role of a journalist is not to deliver you "pre-chewed and even digested" "food," ready to be assimilated, but to help you, as much as possible, to train your critical thinking, so that you can make the best decisions according to your own expectations and beliefs.
So, in the following, a few thoughts that, hopefully, could serve you as tools for your own decision, tools that I also use:
1. Think carefully about what you are voting for on each ballot. The political vote is for the County Councils and European Parliament. In the case of mayors, it is essential who you believe can make your immediate world better.
Choose according to how you want your street and city to look and who is the most credible to meet these expectations.
I amusingly observe on Facebook all sorts of political "influencers" who from thousands of kilometers away know what's best in all the cities of the country, who should be voted for.
If it weren't ridiculous, it would be insulting. Each of you knows best what is best on your street.
2. For the European Parliament elections, many of the candidates have been in the EP before. You have therefore the measuring unit to evaluate them.
It doesn't matter so much how vocal they are in the country, how efficient they are at spouting words and flames, but how well they conform to the job description for which they are asking for your vote and to what extent what they have done so far gives you reason to believe that they will meet your expectations.
Of course, here it is good to understand what the expectations are. What do we want from a Romanian MEP? To throw meatballs over the fence in Romania? Wrong! It is about promoting and supporting those ideas, those policies, those solutions for European issues that meet your beliefs and expectations, not those of Romania.
Yes, there are common national interests, but there are also areas where visions differ, for example, LGBT and ecology.
3. Strategic voting is an effective negative voting tool when we talk about uninominal elections, mayors, and Presidents of County Councils. And yes, sometimes it is necessary against the worst of options.
But otherwise, captivity in strategic voting is a trap. I strongly believe that you should vote according to your conscience, even if it is about parties on the brink or independents.
Yes, the votes given to those who do not make the threshold are redistributed, but if all those who would like to but are afraid to vote for someone on the edge would do so, maybe they would pass the threshold.
On the other hand, voting is also a political signal. Forced alignment behind some just because they are a safe option does not help at all. The political offer will change only to the extent that the political demand will impose it.
And the lesser evil has the bad habit of becoming the greater evil if it is always patted on the head and validated only because it is somewhat more tolerable.
4. It is not necessary for all your voting papers to be stamped the same way, although one of the purposes of merging was precisely this. The functions are different, so the expectations and criteria are different, and based on them, you should vote.
5. Try to evaluate with critical spirit and demand the foreseeable alarm calls that you will hear regarding fraud, coercion, and other misfortunes. It is possible that they will happen, but it is just as possible that they are attempts to mobilize voters and to pre-establish reasons in the hypothesis of a weak result.
Whether there is fraud or not can be seen from the difference or concordance of the parallel counts, which each party does based on the minutes with which their representatives leave the polling stations.
If what appears in the official documents for a polling station/location/county/national does not match what the party has through the sum of the figures communicated by its people from the stations, we can talk about fraud. Otherwise, no.
Think carefully, weigh, and then vote with a clear conscience that you have been in line with your interests and principles. If you do this, regardless of the outcome, you will be winners.