As I wrote back in 2010, “If you're not the side that Uncle Sam favours then it seems you're just not allowed to win an election fairly and squarely.”
It's the same of course whether the election takes place in Russia, Belarus, Iran, Venezuela or Gaza.
More on the demonisation of Vladimir Putin- and why western elites are so keen for us to hate Russia's most popular politician, here.
7 comments:
In fairness it is not just the 'Western Elites' that aren't so keen on Mr Putin.
To be honest I was waiting for this reaction from, it was as predictable as the initial allegations of fraud.
And Bravo for taking this result, of which there are a couple of questions and lumping it together with some massively corrupt elections.
I know we have been over this before, but your ability to just blindly follow the official line of the Belarusian government does a massive disservice to your argument.
Perhaps highlighting the hypocrisy of the response to elections in Palestine, or having the EU HR on Foreign Affairs lecturing states on democracy, despite never being elected. That would be a more convincing argument.
Rather than lumping this election in with others where the opposition candidates have been detained and beaten, and public outcry has been met with rather brutal authoritarian repression.
Hi Ian- thanks for that feedback.
The point I'm trying to make in the post is that however fair/unfair/moderately fair/completely fair the elections may/may not be, the western elite will yell' fraud' at any election result they don't like. Why do they do this? Well, they know that some of the mud undoubtedly sticks, even if no evidence of electoral fraud ever emerges. The 'the stolen election' narrative is a very
important tactic used by the west to discredit leaders who don't do their bidding.
I totally agree with you re the hypocrisy of the response to elections in Palestine and having the EU HR on Foreign Affairs lecturing states on democracy.
I noticed Al-Jazeera commenting on the Iranian elections. Given that Qatar is on one side in the Islamic civil war, and Iran is on the other side, it's no great shock that Al-Jazeera said the elections were fixed.
It all depends on what the meaning of the word "fixed" is. Al-Jazeera reported that many prospective candidates in the Iranian elections were rejected for various reasons.
http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2008/january-2008/massive-rejection-of-reformists-candidates-for-com.shtml
So while it's entirely legal under the laws of Iran, calling it an election in the same sense as an American or British election is an exercise in sophistry, in my opinion.
I posessed a record in my childhood mocking the Kennedy administration. The record contained the following mock public service announcement: "Election Day is near. Go to the polls and vote. Vote for the Kennedy of your choice but vote!"
I can just imagine a similar announcement before the recent Iranian election: "Election Day is near. Go to the polls and vote. Vote for the Israel-hating, nuke-building mullah of your choice but vote!"
By pushing the claim that the Russian election is not "democratic" because the oppositionn parties didn't get an equal amount of coverage the BBC is automatically (& for once truthfully|) saying that Britain isn't a democracy since not only do do they censor both debate and news reporting to give more coverage to the official parties, they, unlike Russia, praqctice such censorship without reference to popularity.
Thus the Green Party get 40 times more coverage, all of it supportive, per voter, than UKIP, all unsupportive.
The BNP who, whatever you think of them, cannot honestly be accused of being 1,000th as fascist as the obscene war criminals running our government and media, are equally cenosred.
Where else in the world has an 'election' had online web camera service for anyone, anywhere in the world to view in real-time, including transparent ballot boxes in every polling station across all nine time-zones.?
Come on! please, ..that's got to be hailed as a major world achievement !!
Out of 43-million people, a mere number of serious violations discovered, of which will obviously be investigated and dealt with according to law.
What more do the 'envious' want from Russia ..blood?!
But come on Neil Craig is that how a "two Party system" is suppossed to work. Opps. We mean not you in the United Kingdom or Britain. We are from the United States and we live in New York City. We have only two political parties. The Democrats and the Republicans. They are like gansters. Just like the Crips and the Bloods. There is hardly anything different between them. So there you have it a "democracy". Oh and worst of all they both support war everywere. And we criticise Russian elections? Come on the U.S. elections are always unfair because it is only two parties that are going to make it in the end as always. Some "democracy" that we have here.
doug:
' noticed Al-Jazeera commenting on the Iranian elections. Given that Qatar is on one side in the Islamic civil war, and Iran is on the other side, it's no great shock that Al-Jazeera said the elections were fixed'
what islamic civil war?
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