It’s odd how even the harshest dictatorships like to maintain the outward forms of democracy. Russia has just conducted an election that must have reminded some elderly voters of Soviet times: everyone knew the result in advance, but it was still necessary to go through the rigmarole of ballot boxes, declarations and so on.
Riot police in Moscow arrest opposition supporters
Belarus, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Tajikistan, even China: all like to coat their autocracy with a patina of parliamentary rule. Of 198 territories in the world (counting Kosovo), only ten don’t call themselves democracies: Swaziland, Bhutan, …