L’ennesimo resoconto sul piglio autoritario adottato da Mosca viene dal Wall Street Journal. Kara Murza, nell’articolo di ieri, ha evidenziato le modalità usate da Putin per conculcare la libertà d’espressione in maniera scientifica, arrivando perfino ad oscurare le aspirazioni democratiche della società civile, smentendole alla radice.
«The myth that Russians do not want democracy is used by Mr. Putin to justify his actions, as well as by his apologists in the West, who maintain that there is no alternative to collaboration with the Kremlin. This fantasy does not withstand the test of facts. In elections to the very first Russian parliament, in 1906, conducted on an unequal but mass franchise, a majority of seats were won by the Constitutional Democratic party, which advocated for a British-style parliamentary system with full political freedoms. Indeed, the czarist government had to restrict, not expand, the franchise in order to reduce liberal influence in parliament, which it did in 1907. The first Russian elections held with universal suffrage in 1917 (three years before the U.S., incidentally) resulted in a crushing defeat for the Bolsheviks, who had usurped power by force of arms. In 1991, when Russians directly elected their head of state for the first time in history, opposition candidate Boris Yeltsin won on a platform of democratic reforms, beating the then-ruling Communist party nominee by 57% to 17%. Even the 1993 parliamentary elections, usually remembered for the first-place finish of the ultranationalist party of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, showed significant support for pro-democracy parties, which, combined, received 40% of the vote against 35% for Zhirinovsky and the Communists. And in the 1996 presidential election, Russian voters re-elected an unpopular incumbent when faced with the alternative of a communist restoration».
