American Hypocrisy Rears Its Ugly Head Yet Again

American hypocrisy has reared its ugly little head yet again.

Observers question Russian vote

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- International electoral monitors Monday questioned the fairness of the Russian parliamentary elections, in which President Vladimir Putin's party claimed a sweeping mandate that could let him wield power beyond the end of his presidential term.

With nearly 92 percent of precincts reporting, Putin's United Russia Party had 63.2 percent of Sunday's vote, according to the Central Election Commission.

That margin would be enough to form a majority in the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, party leader Boris Gryzlov said at a news conference.

Putin held the top spot on United Russia's list of candidates, which guarantees him a seat in parliament. The showing by United Russia is likely to allow the president to extend his influence over Russian affairs when his presidential term ends in 2008 -- perhaps as prime minister.

But the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) questioned the fairness of the polls.

"We can not say there were fair elections," said Luc van den Brande, head of the OSCE delegation, Monday.

Independent election monitors said their work had been hampered, and reports abound of state employees being ordered to support the government.

Van den Brande called the ballot a "managed election," saying the president's office had an "overwhelming influence." "It was not first and foremost an election of the state Duma members, but it was rather a referendum to the president," according to van den Brande. The Duma is the name for the lower house of Russia's parliament.

And in Washington, the White House called on Russian authorities to investigate complaints of election irregularities. U.S. officials had expressed concern ahead of the vote about the intimidation of opposition figures and the effect of "state-owned or -influenced" media in favor of Putin's party, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

The UK's Foreign Office urged Russia to investigate all claims of electoral irregularities in a statement reported by The Associated Press, adding that such claims "if proven correct, would suggest that the Russian elections were neither free nor fair.

"It is deeply disappointing that Russia prevented the Office for Democracy and the Institute for Human Rights (part of the OSCE) from observing the elections which would have provided expert, independent election monitoring," the statement added.

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov told journalists that his party questioned the initial results, and said the party planned to conduct a vote count of its own. He said Communists would rally across the country for days in protest of what they believe is biased counting.

Opposition leader Garry Kasparov, the chess grand master who was sentenced to five days in jail for leading an unsanctioned demonstration in November, said Putin and his allies were "raping the democratic system."

"The campaign was completely dominated by all the authority that all belonged to United Russia," said Kasparov, whose Other Russia party was disqualified by election officials. "More or less, Russia now has moved to a soft version of one-party dictatorship."

But Gryzlov said: "The election is vindication that Vladimir Putin is the country's national leader, and that the Russian voters support the political course he has taken in the last eight years."

And Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov dismissed the complaints, arguing that even "marginal" parties had been allowed to take part in the campaign.

"What we faced here was a free and democratic election campaign," Peskov told CNN. "And the fact that we now, according to preliminary results, are expecting a three- or four-party parliament shows that this was really a race. The unique characteristic of that race was the leadership of one party, the front-runner, United Russia."

Three other parties are expected to hold seats in the new Duma. As of Monday, the opposition Communist Party had received 11.7 percent of the vote; the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, 8.4 percent; and the pro-Putin Fair Russian Party 8 percent.

The remaining seven parties on the ballot, including several pro-Western liberal parties, failed to meet the 7 percent threshold for representation in the Duma.

Among those elected to the Duma were Andrei Lugovoi, chief suspect in the poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko in London last year.

The newly-elected Liberal Democratic Party of Russia lawmaker is now immune from legal proceedings in Russia -- the U.K. authorities had previously requested his extradition to London to face trial.

Putin, whom critics accuse of undermining political and media freedoms while president, has said he would consider taking the post of prime minister if his party were to win a landslide victory. He has already held that office, in 1999, before then-President Boris Yeltsin named the former KGB officer Russia's acting president.

He was elected to succeed Yeltsin in 2000 and won a second term in 2004.

During the campaign, Putin described his opponents as "foreign-fed jackals" and said Russia would not tolerate meddling from abroad.

Far-right leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, said he was satisfied with the initial results. He expected his party's share of the vote to rise as high as 13 percent once all the votes are counted.

And the leader of the Fair Russian Party, Sergei Mironov, said his party was planning to issue a bill in parliament to extend the presidential term. But changing the length of the presidential term would require a change to Russia's constitution, something Gryzlov said United Russia would not support.

This time, the White House is demanding investigations into voter irregularities in Russia. What part of that sentence sounds hypocritical? All of it!! This is coming from an administration who did everything in its power to prevent voter irregularities from being investigated in THIS COUNTRY many times!! This is coming from an administration who got the Supreme Court to ILLEGALLY intervene on its behalf to crown the Boy King President in 2000. But these jackasses seriously want investigations into the Russian vote? Please bitches!! They have no moral leg to stand on here!!

This is the business of the people of Russia, who by the way, are telling the rest of the world to keep the hell out of their business!! It is up to the people of Russia to decide who they want. They did!! It is also up to the people of Russia to deal with Putin if they don't want him in power. It is not the business of the United States. It is not the business of the rest of the world.
The hypocrisy smells!! Before the United States starts calling FOUL in Russia, look at Pakistan. The thug in charge there threw out the Supreme Court and handpicked a new one so that he could be declared the winner of the election. Hmm, it seems he took a page from the Bush thugs!! No wonder why they have nothing to say about him. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!!

Stay out of Russia's business!! Stop acting like our shit doesn't stink here because it does!!