Quite how the rapidly moving drama in Cyprus is going to play out is, at the time of writing, anyone’s guess, but what is clear is that this crisis is another sign that politics — real politics — is returning to the wasteland that the euro zone’s technocrats have created.

Writing for Business Insider, Joe Wiesenthal explains that up until recently “all the big votes have gone Europe’s way” (I would phrase it very differently, but I know what he means), but . . .

It looks like Europe’s luck is running out.
In Italy last month, the election ended inconclusively. The center-left coalition failed to get enough votes (it seems) to form a government, and there might need to be new elections.
And then it finally happened in Cyprus yesterday. A bailout vote just failed. It didn’t just fail. It didn’t even garner one yea vote.
And the whole reason Cyprus is faced with this awful bailout proposal (which taxes depositors) is because if Cyprus were to just get a grant or a blank check without brutal conditions, then that couldn’t pass the German parliament. So there are really two parliaments here that are ready to vote ‘no’ on something.
This has always been the risk to the system, that a vote would go wrong. And now it’s happened.

Awkward thing, politics.