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.
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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, …