Russia's parliamentary election has been declared "not fair" by a joint observer team of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe. They said that the Russian election
was not fair and failed to meet many OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards for democratic elections...
[There were] abuse of administrative resources... [and] media coverage [was] strongly in favour of the ruling party...
[The polls] took place in an atmosphere which seriously limited political competition... [and where] there was not a level political playing field. (BBC) This isn't really very surprising. Russia hasn't been a democracy for even two decades, so there has been little for it to actually sink into the people as a true belief. The politicians involved grew up grew up during the Soviet era, when corruption was rife and expected, and many of them were involved in it.
Democracy simply takes time to sink in in real practice. Claiming to be a democrat is easy, and ever since democracy has become the only acceptable political philosophy, evidenced by the absurd claims of democratic belief from people such as Mugabe and his ilk. And, of course, there were elections under Communism - except the only candidates allowed were approved Communist ones.
Democracy doesn't exist simply through a democratic system being put in place. It requires an acceptance of the principles and actually putting them into practice. Russia hasn't yet reached that stage. It's democracy is still too young and still not deeply embedded. In time, it will. But not yet. And it appears not while Putin is still around - in any capacity.
Source: BBC
