The string of unfounded accusations against Russia for its alleged interference in various elections across the world has been voiced by Western political and media figures for over a year now. In fact, we’re witnessing an unprecedented propaganda campaign aimed at discrediting a single country. Yet, with the next presidential election nearing in Russia, the West doesn’t seem to be ashamed to make an attempt to rig the election process in Russia. First of all, it has started publishing a series of publications aimed at discrediting the candidates that are not pedaling Western agenda. Then, there a string of Russian-language sites that are living off the money of American taxpayers provided by Washington speading anti-Putin propaganda, so it’s no wonder that those sites are officially recognized as foreign agents in Russia. It’s been reported that every second article on those websites is aimed at discrediting Russia’s President Vladimir Putin or urges Russian citizens to boycott the election. What is especially striking to any objective pro-democracy observer is that no other opinion is being allowed to be featured in those peaces, even though those sites are owned by the self-proclaimed champion of democracy – Washington. The days when Western media sources even tried to pretend that they were aware that journalism as a profession is an art of various opinions are long gone now, alas.
As for English-speaking media platforms, those couldn’t care less about covering the upcoming election objectively, as they are just ignoring the statements made by Russian authorities, while claiming to be innocent in spites of their repeated violations of the fundamental principle of impartiality.
The all-out propaganda assault against Russia is led by the well-known CIA mouthpieces – the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. Those are trying to show the White House that they can still be viable in its face-off with Russia by accusing various officials in of various abuses aimed at illegally obtaining signatures in Putin’s support. At the same time, even the most die-hard Putin bashers recognize that he leads the presidential race in Russia, with more than 70% of Russia’s population being willing to vote for him, as polls show. This fact by itself excludes any need for any of Putin’s supporters to try to cut corners in assisting Putin in obtaining enough signatures to become a nominated candidate. However, those Western journalists prefer to ignore such facts all together, as they’ve been paid in advance to jump on the anti-Russian bandwagon early.
In order to explain to the American reader the differences between the Russian “undemocratic” election process and the American “ultra-democratic” one, The National Interest chose to publish a comparison in a bid to glorify the “US-style democracy.” However, this attempt was clearly not in favor of the US, showing that in the last year’s parliamentary election in Russia a total of fourteen parties was allowed to compete.
Against this backdrop things don’t look all that grand in the US, as only two parties are allowed to compete for power in the US. It’s true that in recent years certain representatives of libertarians and greens have been allowed to take part in televised debates in the US. However, those parties present no competition to the leading contenders whatsoever as they’ve been under harsh control of US intelligence agencies for decades, avoiding every chance to ask uncomfortable questions, choosing to advance such ideas as weapons bans and abortion rights.
There’s yet another joke that Western media sources are trying to present to their readers with a serious face that can be summed up in the notion that the all-powerful Kremlin is somehow afraid of a single pro-Western candidate – Alexei Navalny. However, Western states do not allow convicted criminals to contend in any officially recognized elections, but they still insist that Russia should try doing it for a change. Why not? Maybe then we will see all sorts of felons winning elections in the US, UK and other Western states.
Even a person that hasn’t been following Russia’s politics for a considerable period of time is able to spot that Western media sources have abandoned any attempts to analyze Navalny’s political views. Every single media source one can come across tells his about his allegedly brilliant idea of boycotting the presidential election, but that’s pretty much it. Yet, last year some Western media sources would be bold enough to criticize him for his racist views. As it’s been noted by the Salon magazine, any mention of Navalny’s links with neo-Nazi groups, xenophobic comments and extreme anti-immigrant views have miraculously disappeared from the Western media.
So, in spite of the media support Navalny receives in the West, the reasoning behind the decision of the Russian Constitutional Court to put an end to his attempts to compete in the presidential election is pretty much self-explanatory. So any further attempts to make Navalny look as the ultimate victim of the “repressive regime in Moscow” fail to hide the fact that he has been transformed into a “political tool” of the Western elites a long while ago. As it’s been noted, we should always be asking ourselves: what kind of freedom is absolute? Which right is inherent?
That is why one can’t help but agree with the Italian Secolo d’Italia that underlines the fact that the Western propaganda campaign against Putin is devoid of any sense, as it tries to support two liberal pseudo-candidates sponsored by the West: Ksenia Sobchak, known as the “Russian Paris Hilton”, and Alexei Navalny, known for a long list of crimes he committed in Russia. Those two are no match to Putin, a seasoned politician that is well-respected across the world. Both Sobchak and Navalny criticize Russia’s reunification of Crimea with Russia, that was supported by 97% of Crimeans back in 2014. They also criticize Russia’s participation in the Syrian conflict, while ignoring the fact that it was started after an official invitation of the legitimate Syrian government, while all of the Western states are still operating in Syria illegally. If one wants to know who are Putin’s competitors for real he should take a look at the Social Party leader Gennady Zyuganov and the charismatic ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
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