If I were really snarky, I’d headline this post with a title like “In Soviet Russia, election frauds you!” Electoral frauds in Russia aren’t particularly shocking news, especially in Russia, but how often do you see it being claimed by the winner rather than the loser? Yet this is exactly what happened when a first time candidate for Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia, Anton Chumachenko, claimed that his victory was due to electoral fraud and that his opponent should have won instead.

Of course, the really tragic part is that the party seems to be doing everything it can to downplay the announcement and stall investigations. From the article in The Washington Post:

Chumachenko has provided evidence to the court and urged it to transfer his mandate to Vishnevsky. A ruling is pending. Meanwhile, prosecutors have sought to examine the original ballots. Election officials say they were damaged when a water pipe burst, an explanation that has been used before in Russia to stall investigations into election irregularities.

“We have very smart pipes,” Chumachenko said with a grin. “They know exactly where to leak.”

I post this because I think it jives well with my point about democracies. They’re the best form of government there is, but simply holding elections, even if they were free and fair which this one obviously was not, is not enough to qualify a country to be called a democracy. Yet repressive governments are fearful enough that they go to great lengths to show that they are democratic. Which is why we should all be ever ready to condemn them when they are not.