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In my First Post piece earlier this week, I highlighted western double standards when it comes to post-election protests:

In the 2006 presidential elections in Mexico, official results showed that the neo-liberal, anti-leftist and pro-American Felipe Calderon had won by 0.58 per cent.
The left-wing 'Coalition for the Good of All' alleged voting irregularities in more than 30 per cent of polling stations and organised massive street protests. But the protesters' cause was not championed by Washington and the election controversy was barely mentioned in the mainstream western media. Why? Because the "right" side had won.

Unlike in Iran of course, when in last year’s election, the "wrong" side, i.e. President Ahmadinejad, won. And that’s why the BBC’s Newsnight are, we are told, ‘watching events in Iran closely.’ (hat tip Ed on Media Lens message board)

What I’ve seen from Iran today is hundreds of thousands of people gathering in Tehran to celebrate the 31st anniversary of the country’s Islamic revolution. How very inconvenient for the BBC and other hawk-eyed Iran ‘watchers’. But of course, in the view of the Biased Broadcasting Corporation, the opinions and views of the people who support President Ahmadinejad don't count, it's only the supporters of the Twittering 'democratic' opposition who matter.

If, like me, you are sick and tired of the BBC’s very biased reporting of events in Iran, and their highly selective coverage of anti-government protests around the globe, then details on where to complain can be found here.

Always remember, it’s meant to be our BBC.

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This article of mine appears in The First Post.

It's a fix! So claims Yulia Tymoshenko, the defeated candidate in yesterday's Ukrainian presidential elections. Even before a vote was cast, Tymoshenko had been warning her rival Viktor Yanukovych of "the kind of resistance he has never seen before" if he tried to rig the election. "If we are unable to guarantee the honest expression of the people's will and honest results, we will mobilise the people," she said. "I have no doubt about this."

Now that she has indeed lost we can prepare ourselves for days - even weeks - of protests as her supporters attempt to annul the result.

A sense of deja vu? Absolutely. We've been here a few times before.

In 2000, the self-styled 'democratic' opposition in Yugoslavia claimed that any result in the presidential election which did not show the incumbent Slobodan Milosevic defeated in round one would be a fix - and that they'd take to the streets. Which is what they did. In the so-called 'Bulldozer Revolution' which followed, parliament was set on fire and Milosevic lost power.

In 2009, the Iranian 'green' opposition declared that any result which showed the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner in the country's presidential election would be fraudulent and that they'd take to the streets. Which is what they did.
So far Ahmadenijad's regime hasn't been toppled, but it's certainly been seriously weakened by the protests.

What the 'democratic' opposition in Yugoslavia, Iran and Ukraine have in common is that they were the favoured choices of the US. In the Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko may have modified her once fiercely anti-Russian position, but there's no doubting that the US would prefer one of the co-leaders of the US-backed 2004 'Orange Revolution' and a supporter of Nato membership to an opponent – i.e. Viktor Yanukovych - who is against joining Nato and wants his country to be neutral.

The opposition can make their claims about the election being fraudulent, before a vote is even cast, because they know that their cause will be championed by the US and its closest allies, including Britain. They also know that they will be sympathetically portrayed as 'democrats' in the mainstream western media - and that their rivals will be portrayed as 'cheats' and 'frauds'.

Youc can read the rest of the article here.

UPDATE: Neo-con commentator Anne Applebaum has penned a piece in today's Washington Post entitled "Ukraine's democratic evolution, on hold for now".
Vote the wrong way, i.e., not for Anne's favoured 'democratic revolutionaries' and there are real fears for 'democracy', it seems.
She also thinks that the Orange Revolution lost public support because it didn't introduce enough economic 'reforms'. "The Ukrainian government still has not gotten around to privatizing land or removing Soviet-era subsidies from the budget", she complains.
That's right Anne, if only the government had sold off the land and removed all subsidies, the 'Orange' side would have won the election. If you believe that, you'll believe anything (including the neocon conspiracy theories that Iraq possessed WMD and that Iran currently poses a nuclear 'threat'.)

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It seems we shouldn’t be bothering ourselves with foreign policy. It’s not for the likes of us, dear reader. Cos we aren’t members of the ‘elite’.

From today's Morning Star.

The chief executive of a British pro-Israeli lobby group has been condemned for making inflammatory comments flouting democracy and international law at a high-profile conference in Israel.

Lorna Fitzsimons, CEO of Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) - a group which lobbies on behalf of Israel in Britain - was addressing the Herzliya conference on the state of the Jewish nation.

Former Labour MP Ms Fitzsimons is reported to have told the conference that "public opinion does not influence foreign policy in Britain. Foreign policy is an elite issue."

Veteran Middle East reporter Robert Fisk described this as "one of the most distressing moments" of the conference. "Deal with the elite and the proles will follow - that was the implication," he interpreted.

Quite.

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This piece of mine, on alarming developments in Hungary, appears in The New Statesman.

His approval ratings are among the lowest ever achieved by a prime minister. As the former manager of the country’s finances, many blame him for its current economic predicament. By nature an introvert, he is finding it hard to build up a rapport with the electorate. His name is Gordon B....

No, not Gordon Brown, but Gordon Bajnai, who last month was sworn in as the new prime minister of Hungary.

The similarities between the political situations in Hungary and Britain are striking. In both countries a nominally left-of-centre – but actually pro-big business and pro-privatisation – government has presided over an unsustainable credit boom. Both have been hit hard by the global recession. We should also note that Bajnai’s predecessor, Ferenc Gyurcsány, was widely referred to as “Hungary’s Tony Blair” and is a friend of Peter Mandelson.

But there are important differences, too. Britain’s Gordon B may not have had his elevation to the premiership endorsed by the electorate, but he is nonetheless a democratically elected member of parliament. Hungary’s Gordon B has not been elected to any office.

A millionaire businessman, nicknamed “Goose Gordon” for his controversial role in the liquidation of a poultry firm in which hundreds of producers lost their savings, Bajnai became prime minister due to the support of the neoliberal SZDSZ party (Alliance of Free Democrats), who despite having the support of only 1 per cent of the electorate, according to recent opinion polls, hold the balance of power in parliament.

Bajnai is not a member of any political party, but a friend and former business partner of both Gyurcsány and the SZDSZ leader, János Kóka. Imagine if in Britain the Lib Dems held the balance of power in the next parliament and Nick Clegg installed an old business buddy, who was not an MP, as PM.

It sounds far-fetched, but it has happened in Hungary. Realising that they stand little chance of winning seats in the next election, the SZDSZ, who reacted angrily when voters in a referendum last year rejected the imposition of hospital and doctor’s visit fees and higher-education tuition fees, have been pushing for a “government of experts” to impose the draconian cutbacks in public spending that they have long advocated. Now they have got what they wanted.

In addition to the prime minister, other unelected “experts” in the new government include finance minister Peter Oszko, formerly head of Deloitte Hungary; economy minister István Varga, the former head of Shell in Hungary; and minister of transport, telecommunication and energy, Peter Honig, the former CEO of the airline Malev.

The fact that unelected figures hold so much power in a European country that styles itself a democracy is alarming. The formation of “non-political” governments to introduce swingeing cuts in public expenditure – and privatise health care, lower pensions and drastically reduce welfare provision – is an undemocratic development that could spread.

Such governments are a long way from being “non-political”. On the contrary, they are espousing ideologically motivated economic policies, but do so under the smokescreen of “financial necessity”. Unable to receive a popular mandate for their reforms, neoliberals in Hungary have stuck two fingers up at the democratic process. As the economic crisis deepens and public unrest grows, don’t rule out their counterparts in other countries following suit.

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