Will a day come...

[RGBVideo]

[Dinner]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1130/p06s02-woeu.html

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/russian-election-fraud/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/world/europe/27iht-27fraud.8495486.html

It's extremely well documented by reliable sources. Putin had his cronies stuffing so many ballot boxes that there were vast numbers of more ballots there there are Russian citizens. There was fraud and coercion all over the place.

[fed1943]

England is a democracy and has no separate branches.

[a.kitman]

Sounds crazy, but you have to "never say never"; theoretically, it's possible. 15 years ago, if someone would've said to me that by 2010, elections in Sweden would have more voter control and fraud than elections in Russia, I would've presumed him to be completely insane.

okey... what are you talking about?

[onodera]

I still would given the last Russian election had so much wide spread fraud there was something like 15% more ballots cast there there are people in the country.

That wasn't the last Russian election. The last one was in 2008, when Medvedev was elected.

Btw, have you heard about the recent election into the Moscow Duma? Now that was a total farce. One electoral district reported 0 ballots cast for a specific opposition party, while the leader of the party himself voted there.

[Dr Strangelove]

What will happen as the per capita GDP approaches that of Europe or the US? As people become more affluent they're likely to expect more freedom.

[onodera]

There are way too many capita in China for that.

[HalfLotus]

It was ironic at Copenhagen when "freedom-loving westerners" were hell bent on instituting totalitarian global governance, and China was the country most vehemently defending their privacy and national sovereignty by not allowing eco-globalist institutions to snoop in their industrial business.

[Elok]

Only if you choose to read it as "ironic." Are you one of those people who thinks "irony" is a synonym of "ferrous"?

[RGBVideo]

Russia

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1130/p06s02-woeu.html

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/russian-election-fraud/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/world/europe/27iht-27fraud.8495486.html

It's extremely well documented by reliable sources. Putin had his cronies stuffing so many ballot boxes that there were vast numbers of more ballots there there are Russian citizens. There was fraud and coercion all over the place.

There's not a single source listed in the links you provided, only unnamed "officials" and "other people" who are naming methods of fraud such as ballot stuffing. What are named are general complaints of micro-sized opposition parties who are complaining in general about "stolen election" and "fraud" without naming any methods or specific occasions of fraud or even irregularities. Yeah, news flash: Trotskyist Party USA officials probably complained about massive fraud because they can't believe they genuinely got piss-poor results in 2000, 2004 and 2008, too.

The focal point of criticism of Russian elections has been for the past five years the unrealistically high electoral popularity of the ruling party -- Americans can't grasp the concept that there are not two equally popular ruling parties constantly fighting for power of government.

You know, in a time before Wikipedia, I probably would've taken what New York Times' writes as an seal of authenticity, but those news articles are basically news about nothing, filled with weasel words.



On a separate point, this caught my eye:

At Oryol State University, professors have told students to vote for United Russia or face dismissal, said a journalism student, who requested anonymity to avoid the risk of being expelled. He said the students had also been told to vote at an on-campus polling station, which is to be supervised by a teacher.

"Many students are afraid, especially those who live in the dorms, and they say they have to vote for United Russia," he said.

He said rumors were swirling around the campus that cameras have been hidden in the polling station to see how students vote.

Seriously speaking, if we presume that there were voting officials who saw who invididual voters voted for, would it be a big problem? They can still vote for whoever they want, altough other people and vote-counters could see what specific party they voted for. Strictly speaking, this is defined as a "democracy" since voting for every citizen is free and fair, but do you really think it wouldn't be a "western democracy" to be taken seriously if the voting method made invididuals to show everyone who they were voting for?

In other words, do you think a place where voting officials would see what party the voters voted for could still be considered a legitimate democracy?

[RGBVideo]

Btw, have you heard about the recent election into the Moscow Duma? Now that was a total farce. One electoral district reported 0 ballots cast for a specific opposition party, while the leader of the party himself voted there.

hahaha what?

do you have any further information?

[RGBVideo]

a.kitman,

okey... what are you talking about?

Here's an example, last EU parliamentary elections in Sweden (2009) :

Here's a list of irregularities the Piratpartiet-voting people who provided election ballots to voting places reported of.

What do you think?

[Guynemer]

Only if you choose to read it as "ironic." Are you one of those people who thinks "irony" is a synonym of "ferrous"?

I think it is ironic that he doesn't understand what "irony" means.

[HalfLotus]

Only if you choose to read it as "ironic."

What an obtuse statement.

When China is rejecting plans which infringe on their national sovereignty while western nations happily cede their liberties, the scenario posited by the OP has already arrived in part.

Further it is Obama who threatens overt and illegal global spy satellite surveillance against so-called "repressive" nations which defend their sovereignty.

So perhaps it is the premise of this thread and the view of many westerners that is ironic. Presumably the same westerners who think obtuse is synonymous with clever.

[onodera]

hahaha what?

do you have any further information?

Well, I was too lazy to google harder, so I'll give you the article from the party site with the copies of protocols. http://www.mosyabloko.ru/archives/5304
Actually, it says there that after the party leader sued the electoral district, the votes were recalculated and SUDDENLY sixteen votes for his party and several more for other parties were discovered in the wrong batch. Still didn't help his party, as 16 out of 1018 votes is, well, a laughable amount.