This weekend offered a rogues’ gallery of phoney democracy in action. In Russia it was announced that Vladimir Putin had been swept back to the Kremlin, after a suspiciously smashing first-round victory in the presidential election. Iran staged its first parliamentary elections since the rigged presidential poll of 2009 and the violent suppression of the Green movement. And in China, the National People’s Congress – the country’s rubber-stamp parliament – assembled for its annual meeting. It is a coincidence – but perhaps no accident – that these are the three nations that have emerged as the closest protectors of Syria’s murderous one-party state.
上周末，各色虛假的民主活動粉墨登場。在俄羅斯總統大選首輪選舉中蹊蹺地以絕對優勢獲勝之后，弗拉基米爾?普京(Vladimir Putin)將重返克里姆林宮。伊朗舉行了議會選舉，這是自2009年那場有舞弊嫌疑的總統大選和暴力鎮壓“綠色運動”(Green movement)以來的首次。中國則召開了一年一度的全國人大——中國的“橡皮圖章”議會——會議。巧合的是（但或許并非偶然），這三個國家都是殘暴的敘利亞一黨專政政府最密切的保護者。