Rigged against democracy

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Mary Ellen Synon in her Euroseptic blog tells us that:

I've just been to vote at my local polling station here in the Etterbeek commune of Brussels. Not that I had a choice whether to vote or not. Voting in Belgium is compulsory.
I could not pick out and choose a particular candidate for whom to vote (even if I'd found one I liked) because the candidates are organised by a list system, so the party has most of the control over who might end up with a seat in the European Parliament.
More, the system is electronic. That means there is no way I could have spoilt my ballot, or at least, no way that I could figure out, and I did give it some thought. It seems you are pretty much are stuck in the polling booth until you cast a vote for one of the party lists, even if you hate every list on the screen.
And there you have it: the future of European politics. No power of abstaining from a vote, no spoilt ballots as protest, and individual representatives chosen by a party elite -- and not by voters casting a secret ballot for the politician they want to act as their representative. All of which is engineered for the sole purpose of the elected Euro-MPs claiming they have a 'mandate' because they were returned to the European Parliament one a party list with a some chunk of an over-90 percent turnout.
In other words, it is perfectly European, that is, rigged against true democracy.

She also mentions that new MEP and all round heroine Marta Andreasen has an autobiography out called; Brussels laid Bare.