Letters/Discussion Forums
Be careful when criticising democratically-elected presidents
I would like to respond to the mentioning of Russian President Vladimir Putin by Geoff Sifrin in his Taking Issue column, headlined “In our era of doublespeak dictators receive peace prizes”, by reminding anyone who has to be reminded, that Putin had been democratically elected as Russia’s president or prime minister in a few free and fair elections.
Avner Eliyahu Romm
I would like to add that Putin was elected without threatening people with voodoo or witchcraft, etc.
Furthermore, as far as I know, he always follows court orders and never sang about bringing his machine gun or about killing members of any ethnic group.
So I really don’t understand what some people have against Putin. In fact, talking about democratically elected presidents, I should also mention that the violently deposed President Viktor Yanukovich of Ukraine was democratically elected too, while the present so-called “president” of that country was “elected” while people in the east of the country were unable to vote, and while people made hand-written comments on the ballot papers, protesting those “elections” and the civil war in Ukraine.
Jerusalem, Israel