US, EU condemn Putin inauguration

Russian President Vladimir Putin's May 7th inauguration was fraught with controversy in the West over his long tenure in power. With a continuous term nearly as lengthy as that of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Putin's leadership has led to a meltdown in the U.S and its vassal states. Multiple western countries refused to attend the inauguration, though France sent its ambassador to attend the event.

While Western nations vehemently criticized Putin's prolonged rule, Netanyahu's longevity largely remains unquestioned as he serves his 17th year in power -- even longer than the tenure of David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister. And Angela Merkel's 16-year-long reign as Germany's Chancellor never evoked as much as a peep from the usual Russia-critics.

Ukraine’s Farce of a “Democracy”

Within a week of Putin’s inauguration, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken endorsed a decision by “champion of democracy” Ukraine to cancel its next presidential elections.

Ukraine’s refusal to hold elections raises obvious questions about how that country could possibly be considered democratic under president Vladimir Zelensky’s leadership. As his term expires on May 20th, Zelensky and his supporters justified the cancellation under the pretext of Ukraine’s continuing “martial law,” which has allowed him to ban opposition parties and seize media companies under state control.

Before the war, the concept of Ukraine as a “democratic state” was considered laughable, as it was often regarded as one of the most corrupt kleptocracies globally—a label commonly associated with Russia in the West.

Over the years, numerous Ukrainian politicians against a NATO proxy war with Russia have faced bans and suppression. Ukraine sympathizers often justify these draconian measures by pointing to the same corruption under former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Ukraine's politicians, be they pro-Russian or anti-Russian, have long been marred by a pervasive culture of corruption.

In West, A False Variety of Choice

The West often cited the late, so-called “opposition figure” Alexei Navalny as an example of Putin’s suppression of his political opponents. In reality, Navalny, an "anti-corruption" vlogger who was himself convicted of corruption and once compared migrants to roaches, never held elected office and regularly polled at two percent or less. Russia’s adversaries amplified him to disrupt Russian politics; Navalny's organization had a track record of prompting its supporters to undermine Russian elections by unlawfully spoiling ballots.

In reality, the true opposition to President Putin’s United Russia party is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, also known as KPRF (Коммунистическая Партия Российской Федерации). The communist party remains Russia's runner-up in terms of popularity, trailing behind Putin’s United Russia, whereas some European countries, including fascist Ukraine, have completely banned communist parties.

While Russia prohibits actual western-backed extremists like Navalny from participating in elections, European countries like Germany and France often apply the “extremist” or “far right” labels in order to suppress anti-liberal opposition parties like Germany's AFD (the only party speaking out against sanctions and a proxy war with Russia) or presidential candidates Marine Le Pen of France. 

The US, of course, gives no quarter to third-party candidates when it comes to securing significant government positions. The duopoly of the US' two-party system presents a façade of choice by boosting candidates with opposing views in the culture war, but who align on the interests of the US ruling class and imperialism. There is broad bipartisan consensus, for example, on the need to support apartheid Israel, fuel endless wars and feed the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex.

Sketchy Elections

In the US, there have been numerous allegations of bias or irregularities across various elections. For example, the Democratic National Committee was blasted for rigging the Democratic party primary against Senator Bernie Sanders twice, in 2016 and 2020.

Then there’s Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate who has been kept off the ballot in multiple states. President George W. Bush’s 2000 election was effectively decided by the Supreme Court, while President Biden’s 2020 election was riddled with controversy, including Big Tech's collusion with intelligence agencies like the FBI to suppress a true report on Hunter Biden's laptop weeks before voting.

Shameless Double Standards

The West is notorious for behavior which it attributes to Russia, like “election interference.” The US has historically interfered in foreign elections around the world and the American military frequently oversees elections in developing countries, influencing elections through violence and color revolutions to install leaders aligned with their interests.

 Time Magazine openly bragged about the US's role in installing Putin’s predecessor President Boris Yeltsin, meddling in the 1996 election with the help of Russian oligarchs. Our government thereby denied the Russian people a democratic process, after they voted "wrong" and handed a clear mandate to the Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov. 

In fact, western countries have harassed and threatened to sanction election observers after the OSCE decided not to send their observers during the 2024 Russian presidential elections. Such a move is clearly political, as international election observers from various countries have regularly observed Russian elections and various elections around the world, and vice versa.

Now, with the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine, US imperialism and its lackeys have taken a harsher stance, with Lithuania recently banning Russian and Belarusian election observers from its election.

Perhaps it’s time the West stopped throwing stones in glass houses.