In the just concluded Russian polls, President Vladimir Putin emerged the winner and is set for his fourth term as President of Russia after winning 76.6% of the vote. The re-election of the Russian leader has however been described by American press as an increase in the Russian threat.
Leading the odd criticism of the Russian election turnout is the CNN with an array of sharp criticisms of the Russian leader, stating that his return to power goes to show that he sees democracy as a free to grab affair. In what reads as an all-out attack on the personality of Putin, the CNN has dedicated an entire opinion piece to outlining all the things they ‘think’ Putin may do based on his actions in the past years.
An excerpt from the article, written by Samantha Vinograd, reads thus:
“Putin may feign dismay over Western sanctions and diplomatic repercussions after his attacks around the world, but his new term will probably mean more hostility.
The article went ahead to accuse Putin of series of cybersecurity crimes that are yet to be established as fact, in what sounds like the UK’s assumption that Russia poisoned its former spy, only worse because this was coming from a media House.
In reporting the diplomatic crisis with UK, the article admits UK sent home Russian diplomats first but oddly goes ahead to describe Putin’s reply in kind saying “Putin doesn’t care about diplomatic fallout — he doesn’t need “diplomats” in the UK to gather information. He has other means to get intelligence.”
The article continues with tens of prediction of what is yet to come, leaving quite a lot to imagination and most important is to note that, irrespective of the many ‘threats’ that Russia under Putin poses in terms of nuclear war, America remains the only country that has ever used a nuke in hostility against another country, when they dropped atomic missiles in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August 6, 1945.
Also, it is important to also note that in 2013, Edward Snowden’s leak of NSA documents showed that the USA was secretly spying on the whole world.
The exact size of Snowden’s disclosure was unknown, but Australian officials have estimated 15,000 or more Australian intelligence files and British officials estimate at least 58,000 British intelligence files. NSA Director Keith Alexander initially estimated that Snowden had copied anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 NSA documents.
Subsequently, Snowden was ostracised from the US and ultimately took refuge in Russia on asylum.
This statistic questions the claim by an American media that Putin and Russia are threats to Global safety either from nuclear weapons or from cyber-attack.
In its report of Putin’s victory, the CNN kept nagging about how he has “extended” his stay in Office and carefully left out the fact that he was elected by the Russian people, and his fourth term in office is not so strange even in the west, as German Chancellor Angela Markel is also on her fourth term. A situation CNN had simply called “historic”
Putin’s popularity vs. the Popularity of American Presidents
All over the western media, President Vladimir Putin is portrayed as a narcissistic, undiplomatic warmonger while the American Presidents who actually make war in territories outside their own are portrayed as heroes and worshipped.
Meanwhile, a majority of the wars in modern history have been orchestrated by US President’s in their fight against ‘tyranny and terrorism’. March 20, 2003, the United States army formally commenced and led an invasion of Iraq which they dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom. President George Bush and UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, claimed that the invasion was to disarm Iraq of nuclear weapons, stop Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism and free the Iraqi people. It is now fact that this was a lie.
The destabilization of the region led to the crisis with ISIS just as the killing of President Ghadaffi of Libya led to the destabilization of the region and slave trade.
Putin has only invaded an independent territory once in response when some areas in Ukraine escalated into violence after the fall of their central government in 2014.
According to a June 2007 public opinion survey, Putin’s approval rating was 81%, the second highest of any leader in the world that year. In 2014 it rose to 85.9%
In February 2015, based on new domestic polling, Putin was ranked the world’s most popular politician. In June the same year, his approval ratings rose to 89%.
In comparison, the highest approval rating of any American President was 70% for John F. Kennedy. This, to many, explains why western media make frantic effort to portray Putin as a villain. Putin’s high approval rating seems like an argument against democracy.
Like China, Unlike Russia
While China recently removed the limitation to the number of times a President can contest, the newly amended Russian electoral act provides that the President can rule for 6 years per tenure and for a maximum of two tenures.
President Trump, who in all fairness is a friend of Russia, was recorded to have hailed China’s decision. Not just its decision but says “He’s now president for life, president for life. And he’s great…And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday,”
U.S. Presidents could come back to office as much as they wanted before 1932, but by tradition served a maximum of two four-year terms, until President Franklin Roosevelt was elected a record four times starting in 1932. He ruled the country for 12 years, even though he was not as popular as Putin among his people, based on documented approval ratings by Western bodies.
An amendment to the U.S. Constitution approved in 1951 limits presidents to two terms in office.
