The ruling party of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin suffered a surprise drop in support Sunday in legislative elections marred by accusations of unprecedented dirty tricks by the authorities.
United Russia was on course to win but with less than half the vote, results based on around 40 percent of the vote count showed, after a poll seen as a test of Putin's popularity ahead of his planned return to the Kremlin.
Putin will likely still win, but it is nice to see that even when the press is controlled and the opposition is bullied (and killed, sad to say), voting results against the rulers can still exceed the margin of vote stealing. Well, maybe it didn't. But you know what I mean. This has got to be way closer than they ordered.
Keep having elections and maybe the thugs will lose outright. Words to remember as we watch the Arab Spring unfold.
UPDATE: Oh, and let's not forget that Euro-communist parties loyal to Moscow (although they said they were national socialists, so to speak, independent of Moscow) drew huge numbers of voters for decades after we ejected the Nazis from France and Italy. Indeed, it took some covert action to keep Italy in the hands of the Christian Democrats at first.
Our work doesn't end when voting starts. Systems should be set up to endure even the dumbest and most malicious voters.
UPDATE: More on the elections. Putin's machine will kick into action, I imagine. A Russian Spring typically includes lots of mud. Putin's compliant press will fling it to throw back this expression of disapproval.
And Putin may learn that allowing any voting at all--even voting rigged to favor you--is too risky to allow.
UPDATE: Of course, assuming the elections are a real expression of Egyptian voters might not be true. Could the military be manipulating the votes to scare us into financial aid? If so, this is yet another reason for us to focus on rule of law and repeat honest elections as the cure for voters inclined to vote for Islamists.
