[room] О свободных выборах

[Aleksey Korotkov]

When is an election not considered free and fair by the west? Answer:
when it delivers victory to a government that rejects neoliberal
orthodoxy and refuses to orientate its foreign policy towards
Washington or Brussels. There is no other conclusion one can come to
after both the US and the EU announced swingeing sanctions on Belarus
after the re-election of President Lukashenko.
[...]

The 83% vote for Lukashenko is said to be far too high to be taken
seriously; yet there was no such western incredulity when the pro-Nato
and pro-EU Mikhail Saakashvili polled 97% in Georgia's 2004
presidential elections. When Georgian civil-society leaders protested
about the authoritarian direction in which the country was heading, the
west stayed silent.

In Ukraine, the scene of elections this weekend, the western-backed
orange revolution of just over a year ago has also left a bitter taste
for many. For all its talk of spreading democracy, respecting the
rights of independent peoples to choose whichever social and economic
arrangements they wish really is the last thing the west wants.

Neil Clark. You cannot be serious. The Guardian, Monday March 27, 2006
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1740202,00.html) 

-- 
С уважением,
Алексей Коротков

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