Elections Scorecard

Liberty & Democracy: 1; Tyranny and Repression: 1

NY Times: Venezuela Vote Sets Roadblocks on Chávez Path

Boston Globe: Russia parliamentary vote criticized as undemocratic

Some commentators, of course, are making the case that democracy carried the day in both places, citing the popularity of Vladimir Putin amongst the Russian people. No doubt, Putin is popular. But consider two critical facts. One, Putin in popular because he has used, and is using, the time-tested formula for rallying the depressed Russians: play to hard-line nationalism "humiliated" in the Cold War and after; gin up straw men in the form of supposedly dastardly conspirators against the state, i.e., the US, Ukraine, Estonia, and other Western-leaning regional governments; and the immortal bread and circuses. The last Putin can provide only because oil and natural gas prices have flooded the Moscow coffers. (Ballista is willing to bet that ol' Vlad has learned his history and is stockpiling some of that cash for the time when oil revenues eventually fall and hamper the ability of the state to buy good will from the Russian people. Hey, remember the '80s?)

Second key factor that some would like to ignore is that Russians only get to hear one side of the story, Putin's. The media is almost entirely run by the state and offers, ahem, generous amounts of airtime and news print to the Kremlin. Opposition voices, like former chess Grand Master Garry Kasparov, are denied permits to organize and march, intimidated, beaten, jailed, prosecuted, exiled, committed, or killed. A good analogy might be the situation of blacks in the Reconstruction South. Sure, legally, they could vote. But unless the Union Army was standing by, the black vote was suppressed by any means available by the bigoted and humiliated locals. The main difference is that over half of America (mostly in the North and West) wanted blacks to vote, it was just the logistical nightmare of ensuring that such things as poll taxes and the Ku Klux Klan were prevented from turning away free blacks. In Russia, people are purposefully kept ignorant and distracted. Orwell is still alive and kickin' in the USSR, er, Russia.

Now for some levity... me thinks that Putin might have a case against Kasparov. I mean, he is a chess champion, of course he's always strategizing against you! And, what does it mean when a Communist leader is upset about election results? Do you discount the Communist or the election or both? It's a paradox. Kinda like whether you believe a liar if he tells you he's lying.