Laura Bretan Sabotaged – Voting Scandal in Romanian National Selections for Eurovision 2019
Laura Bretan was one of the biggest favourites to represent Romania at this year’s Eurovision. She was seen as the most likely winner of the Romanian national selection in all polls leading to the final. The possibility of Ester Peony winning never crossed anyone’s mind.
Here is the whole story behind the unexpected result. These two guys, supposedly Eurovision fans, were praising Laura Bretan to the skies in their first reaction video. In the same video, they found Ester’s song boring. Normally, their positive or negative views are of no importance. However, when the Romanian broadcaster TVR, invited them to be part of an international jury of 6 people, they suddenly became the focal point of the events that were about to be unfolded.
Judging from their first reaction, and a strong backing from Romanian people, it looked as if Laura Bretan was already on her way to Tel Aviv. Until this video came out shortly before the final.
As you have heard, the 16 year old singer had taken a stand against gay marriages before last year’s constitutional referendum. Suddenly, these two guys from wiwibloggs, who are openly gay (William Lee Adams and Deban Aderemi) changed their minds about Laura’s song.
William Lee Adams and Deban Aderemi, who are supposedly Eurovision fans, gave this song which they clearly liked very much, 10 points out of 24. What’s worse? They gave Ester Peony, who they found boring, 24 full points. No surprise, this had infuriated the Romanian people who overwhelmingly voted for Laura Bretan in Televoting. According to them, these two gay men from the international jury sabotaged Romania’s Eurovision chances.
We don’t agree with Laura Bretan, who is a 16-year-old girl, and we don’t find her opinion about gay marriage right. It’s not governments’ business to decide who can marry who.
But there is one more thing that we don’t agree. In spite of her views, Bretan who had the overwhelming support of Romanian people, shouldn’t have lost the race by the vote of these 2 strangers, who didn’t care about the opinions of a nation, and who were clearly on a mission to get back at her, for her comments.
The only thing that matters to us, is that she was the choice of the Romanian people, and she was musically superior to all the others.
There are two scandals here, one big and one bigger.
The BigScandal: 2 strangers William Lee Adams and Deban Aderemi deliberately scored a song too low and sabotaged the country’s Eurovision chances, just because they didn’t like the political views of the singer.
The Bigger Scandal? Is the absurd voting system implemented by the broadcaster TVR, and the fact that Televoting can only affect the overall result by 15%.
Moral of this tale?
If you live in Romania, don’t help a broadcaster make money, by voting in a poll that won’t change the result.
