From Russia with love

Protesters at Alexei Navalny’s grave during polling

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission plus a smattering of government freeloaders back from a trip to the Russian election have sworn voting was “free and fair and credible” and “a true reflection of the will of the people.”

Everything was concluded in a peaceful environment and in an efficient and professional manner for the sake of democracy, our delegation declared.

Say that again, Judge Priscilla Chigumba, our election commission chair (below) who is no stranger to flawed depositions.

About 80 people were arrested across Russia for “vandalism”  like pouring green dye into ballot boxes and incidents of arson outside polling stations. They face 5 years in jail. The dye ‘zekyonka’ is an antiseptic symbolic of killing germs.

There were four inconsequential other-party candidates after a dozen independents were disqualified from the poll for not meeting Putin’s required criteria.

Alexei Navalny, of course, was dead. (There’s an easy way to kill an opponent already held in an Arctic prison. Put him outside into below freezing temperatures for a while then strike his heart with a fist and it will stop.)

Putin got 87 percent of the 84 million ballots cast.

Zimbabwe’s 2023  small-fry elections saw 4.5 million votes cast by 6.6 million.

Russian observers and hangers-on had unqualified praise too. You know. Free and fair and reflecting the will of the people.  As is usual every five years, our results are once again in unresolved dispute.

Russia’s official figures show 2 million voters living outside the federation were allowed to vote this time around.

Some 120 Russians voted in Putin’s re-election at embassy polling booths in Harare and Bulawayo.

If millions of Zimbabweans who have fled abroad in recent years were allowed to vote from a distance our outcome would be very different.

We loudly support Putin’s war in Ukraine in return for Russian aid, small against the West’s, and investment our phenomenal mining resources by his favoured oligarchs.

Our Prez Mnangagwa got given helicopters on his last visit to Moscow that aren’t seen flying for the public good back here at home.

Putin’s parliament has ruled that he can serve another six years in the presidency under a recent constitutional amendment. When that ends he will have effectively run things for 31 years –  two years longer than another Russian ogre, Josef Stalin.

Birds of a feather …