Another Nail in the Coffin of Russian Democracy
In local elections held on October 11 in Russia, the Putin Kremlin plumbed shocking new depths in the neo-Soviet art of vote fraud. Meanwhile, the Obama White House looked the other way.
Sergei Mitrokhin — chairman of the Yabloko Party who served in parliament from 1994 to 2003 and on the Moscow City Council from 2005 to 2009, but who was forced off the ballot this year like almost every other true opposition candidate — documented “busloads of passengers who travel from district to district to cast their votes repeatedly.” And each such voter cast not just one ballot in multiple locations, but filled out “huge stacks of absentee ballots.” And that wasn’t the worst of it. He also reported:
At one polling station in the Otradnoye district, workers handed pensioners ballots with the United Russia candidates already selected. When observers at the scene requested that they stop violating the rules, members of the district election committee replied that the elderly people were suffering from poor eyesight and had specifically requested the assistance.
The most ludicrous example of falsification occurred at District 192, where my family and I are registered and where we cast our votes on election day. Video footage on Ren-TV clearly showed me placing my own vote on Oct. 11, but after the polls closed the official election returns showed the figure “0” for the Yabloko Party in my district.
Once again, statistical analysis carried out by fearless Russian bloggers proved with mathematical certainty that the results claimed by the Kremlin, a landslide for its party of power, United Russia, could not be accurate. Former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev openly proclaimed the proceedings a “mockery” of democracy. Most tellingly, even the so-called opposition in the Russian parliament, which consists of nothing more than crypto-fascists and outright communists, were so offended by the Kremlin’s excesses, which cut into their merely bureaucratic but still lucrative power bases, that they stormed out of the Duma in protest even as U.S. Secretary of State Clinton arrived in Moscow.
Really should Obama, the creature of Chicago politics, criticize anyone for vote fraud. The big American cities have not had an election in decades where voter fraud was not a factor. In Philadelphia men swinging baseball bats outside polling booths is considered normal at least by the Obama deparetment of Justice. For the Obama regime to make comments about any election in Russia or in Afghanistan would be the epitome of hypocrisy; without Acorn and the miilions of fraudelent votes it produced Obama and his gang would not be sitting in the White House, the center of the former American Republic. There is no surprise at the silence of the Obamaites.
Please remain calm – Obamacare will save us all.
… and not a peep from the Obama WH. Next time, instead of “We won” they intend to inform everybody, “You lost”.
There is no danger of hypocrisy from the White House on this. Obama has been very consistent in deploying his political clout to legitimize electoral fraud, Iran and Honduras being the most salient examples. He will also use his influence to legitimize brutal repression (as with Iran) and even cross-border aggression (as with Georgia).
#1 Has it right, how can we knock Putin check out the fraud next Tuesday in New Jersey. Newark and Camden are infamous for fraud on election day.
“Meanwhile, the Obama White House looked the other way.”
Clearly this writer doesn’t know obama very well… obama never looks away from events like this… in fact he takes very detailed notes on the whole event.
“Surkov compared democracy to a dangerous toxin that might poison and destroy Russia.”
And he’s right… and democracy will destroy the US if we give it a chance… thats why the US is a republic and why the only way it will live is if we crush democracy in the US and restore the Republic…
“Democracy is but one vote away from tyranny.”
I say recognize Solidarity as the Russian government in exile. If it isn’t done by the current US government, then I say it has to be done by the US government in exile. The shenanigans have to stop, and frankly those who perpetrated those shenanigans are as capable as being reformed as a terminally ill patient is treatable.
Wow, nice to see the me myself and I Jamestown Foundation conversation going on here between Zigfeld and “her” sock puppets.
Say hi to Randy Scheunemann for me guys too!
we are told there is democracy in Russia, Iraq,Iran,Afghanistan, and China. pretty laughable claims.
Mr. X, at least I am carrying out the legacy of my ancestors. Two uncles, and a cousin of theirs were in uniform during the second world war. The cousin of my two uncles was shot down over the North Sea. No survivors. The elder of the uncles was a prisoner of war for 18 months after being captured at Ortona, which was one of the bloodiest battles in the second world war, and he was sent to a P.O.W. camp near Moosburg, which isn’t far from Dachau. The younger was part of Operation Overlord, and he was wounded
not that long afterwards.
So, what were your ancestors doing during the time the world almost plunged
into horrific darkness?
Of course Obama won’t say anything, its the one time he will observe the old adage “Tohe who live in glass houses should not throw stones.”
Democracy is overrated anyway. It’s too easy to buy the votes of layabouts who own nothing, produce nothing, and pay no taxes. If there aren’t enough native layabouts, you can always let in a few million unskilled immigrants to tip the vote in your favor (e.g. the UK).
Democracy leads to “wealth-sharing” leads to bankruptcy leads to dictatorship. Russia already had democracy under Yeltsin, and it was a nightmare. Nor do millions of middle-class Chinese want democracy, because they know exactly what a billion poor, envious peasants would vote for.
“Mr. X, at least I am carrying out the legacy of my ancestors.”
So working at Jamestown Foundation is like serving in WWII? I don’t get it.
Oh yeah Ziggy, that open letter to George Soros stunt was interesting…
Are your bosses at the Jamestown Foundation (themselve a front for you know who) no longer in the big anti-Russia lobby tent with good ole’ George? Has Soros figured out that buying governments wholesale in Eastern Europe is getting too expensive, what with the Chinese offering Moldova a cool billion dollar loan in return for farmland and the EU offering the “last dictator in Europe” in Belarus $12 billion, probably in exchange for similar assets?
It seems George Soros and his protege Obama decided to switch tactics, while your Jamestown buddies are upset that this means cutting of Misha Saakashvili and hanging Yuchenko out to dry too. Well you people could only support a politician with a 3% approval rating who is more beloved among Lyov-ites in Montreal than in Kyev for so long.
If the Washington anti-Russia lobby is cracking up between the “liberal Democrat” Demintern Bzerzinskites and the militarist, military industrial complex Republicans, that’s wonderful news.