The Russian election - were they fake as the western MSM says?

Putin has been voted back into power with a increased majority while the liberals’ votes have been approximately halved.

Do I think Russia is an example of democracy at work? No, I do not.

But have you noticed they have paper ballots and not voting machines? While it is quite on the cards that there was some vote stuffing to fake this election every ballot paper would have to have been faked.

In the circumstances of practically being on a war footing one expect a fake election to vote Putin back into office.

Turns out he didn’t need it.

Did you see the photos of the queues in Berlin and elsewhere of Russians waiting to vote.

If I had to make a bet I’d say that the treatment of Russia by the West has massively increased Putin’s support, even amongst those who would not normally have supported him.

This could not be made clearer than with these figure - before Crimea it was under 50%, after Crimea it was 80%.

The votes for Putin in Moscow where one might expected (along with St. Petersburg) the grestest degree of support for the liberals went from 2 million (in 2012) to 3 million (in 2018)

I can only find the item in Russian but international observers present in Russia to monitor the election found no irregularities.

‘Dictator’ Putin Wins ‘Fraud-Tainted’ Vote: Western Media Sticks to Form

You would hardly know it VVP is far more popular with his voters than western leaders with theirs

Russia Insider,

18 March, 2018

From Soviet comparisons to accusations of authoritarianism, mainstream coverage of Russia’s presidential election has barely changed since 2004, though mentions of the UK spy poisoning scandal did add a fresh layer of insinuation.

"

As Putin was thanking his supporters for a landslide victory from the stage in Red Square, Western outlets rolled out long, pre-written news stories, liberally mixing reporting and opinion.

“The vote was tainted by widespread reports of ballot-box stuffing and forced voting, but the complaints will likely do little to undermine Putin,” wrote AP’s lead report. “The Russian leader’s popularity remains high despite his suppression of dissent and reproach from the West over Russia’s increasingly aggressive stance in world affairs and alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. election.”

The Washington Post called Sunday’s vote an “elaborate presidential-election-day spectacle” that sought “to legitimize the election,” which “critics described as a charade,” by boosting the turnout as “a lack of suspense or popular opposition candidates threatened to keep people home.”

Calling the election a “hollow exercise,” the New York Times reached for the most predictable of parallels.

“Gone were the Soviet days when there was just one name on the ballot and the winner habitually harvested 99 percent of the vote. The spirit was similar, however, with pictures of Mr. Putin and his campaign slogan, ‘Strong president, strong Russia,’ blanketing the country,” it wrote.

In its top report. CNN said that Putin “seeks tighter grip on power,”while also reminding its readers that “he is already the country’s longest-serving leader since the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin” (which is not actually true – that would be Leonid Brezhnev). CNN added that Putin is “banking on confrontation with international players this election.”

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia didn’t even bother with such nuances, calling Putin a straight-up “dictator,” though the article was later amended to merely describe the vote as “inevitable.”

For the Guardian, “paradoxically, the first order of business now… is for Putin to set up an escape plan.”

“Kremlin politics have become a bloodsport,” wrote Andrew Roth, the Guardian's correspondent for Moscow. “With a shrinking economy [also untrue] and elites manoeuvring before a possible succession battle, the knives are out.”

This year, the usual analysis was also sprinkled with allegations that a Moscow agent poisoned Sergei Skripal with the toxin “Novichok, a gruesome calling card” to provoke a British response, according to the Guardian.

“A row with London can do Putin no harm, especially among voters who share his uncompromising nationalist worldview and his smouldering sense of victimhood,” an article in the Guardian said this week.

“The diplomatic crisis this poisoning case has caused may help him get more people into polling booths,” echoed Australia’s ABC.

Source: RT

Putin’s Landslide Mandate Defeats Skripal False Flag

Despite only getting a tiny percentage of the vote Ksenia Sobchak gets quite generous air time - certainly compared with radical ( or even not-so-radical) opposition in this country.

Here is France 24 judging the election. What is Macron's level of support among the population. perhaps they find i timpossible to admit that any politician could have the level to support Putin has evidently.

Vladimir Putin suspected of colluding with Russians to win election

MOSCOW – In a victory speech today, Vladimir Putin staunchly denied any collusion with Russians to aid his campaign, allegations which have cast a dark shadow on his decisive 4th election win as Russia’s President.

Several reports from various media outlets have circulated alluding that Putin himself participated in secret talks with high-ranking Russian intelligence officials to manipulate voters. These reports, if accurate, call into question the legitimacy of the ballot results in today’s Russian election, citing the Russian President’s reported connections to the former KGB, well-known Russian billionaire oligarchs, Jared Kushner, and even Russian President Vladimir Putin himself.

“These allegations are ridiculous,” said Putin, accepting the voting results today. “There was no collusion. I was far too busy definitely not destabilizing the political processes of the United States and other western nations to have anything to do with Russian election meddling.”

“It’s a question of trust in the Russian electoral process,” said Dr. Alexi Vilensky, professor of Political Science and Slavic studies at University of Windsor. “If it turns out that President Putin orchestrated his win by seeking help from the Russians, it would be a serious stain on the country’s sterling history with democracy.”

“Surely [Putin] would step down or risk impeachment. It’s a matter of keeping the people’s faith in the integrity of the system,” he added, narrowly avoiding future polonium poisoning.

At press time, Putin had texted the words “pee pee” to US President Donald Trump.

Britain, which has some democratic challenges of its own (to put it extremely mildly!) still manages to call the Russian election 'fake" - probably because 96% of the country failed to vote for their candidate.

This is Caleb Maupin's observations

Here is some of the political debate in Russia. Seems more robust than anything in this country!

Finally, an important message to the West.

Why we don’t respect the West anymore (MUST READ!)

by Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT TV channel and MIA “Russia today”

translated by Scott


source: https://ria.ru/analytics/20180319/1516767644.html


Vineyard of the Saker,
19 March, 2018


Essentially, the West should be horrified not because 76% of Russians voted for Putin, but because this elections have demonstrated that 95% of Russia’s population supports conservative-patriotic, communist and nationalist ideas. That means that liberal ideas are barely surviving among measly 5% of population.


And that’s your fault, my Western friends. It was you who pushed us into “Russians never surrender” mode.


I’ve been telling you for a long time to find normal advisers on Russia. Sack all those parasites. With their short-sighted sanctions, heartless humiliation of our athletes (including athletes with disabilities ), with their “skripals” and ostentatious disregard of the most basic liberal values, like a presumption of innocence, that they manage to hypocritically combined with forcible imposition of ultra-liberal ideas in their own countries, their epileptic mass hysteria, causing in a healthy person a sigh of relief that he lives in Russia, and not in Hollywood, with their post-electoral mess in the United States, in Germany, and in the Brexit-zone; with their attacks on RT, which they cannot forgive for taking advantage of the freedom of speech and showing to the world how to use it, and it turned out that the freedom of speech never was intended to be used for good, but was invented as an object of beauty, like some sort of crystal mop that shines from afar, but is not suitable to clean your stables, with all your injustice and cruelty, inquisitorial hypocrisy and lies you forced us to stop respecting you. You and your so called “values.”


We don’t want to live like you live, anymore. For fifty years, secretly and openly, we wanted to live like you, but not any longer.


We have no more respect for you, and for those amongst us that you support, and for all those people who support you. That’s how this 5% came to be.


For that you only have yourself to blame. And also your Western politicians and analysts, newsmakers and scouts.


Our people are capable to forgive a lot. But we don’t forgive arrogance, and no normal nation would.


Your only remaining Empire would be wise to learn history of its allies, all of them are former empires. To learn the ways they lost their empires. Only because of their arrogance.


White man’s burden, my ass (in English in the original text – trans.)



But the only Empire, you have left, ignores history, it doesn’t teach it and refuses to learn it, meaning that it all will end the way it always does, in such cases.


In meantime, you’ve pushed us to rally around your enemy. Immediately, after you declared him an enemy, we united around him.


Before, he was just our President, who could be reelected. Now, he has become our Leader. We won’t let you change this. And it was you, who created this situation.


It was you who imposed an opposition between patriotism and liberalism. Although, they shouldn’t be mutually exclusive notions. This false dilemma, created by you, made us to chose patriotism.


Even though, many of us are really liberals, myself included.


Get cleaned up, now. You don’t have much time left.