• ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
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    15 days ago

    To be fair, they’re (understandably) under martial law which has been extended in 90 day increments since 2022 with parliamentary approval. Elections aren’t to be held under martial law per Ukranian law, and there have been referenda votes held among the Rada to determine if elections should be held, which failed.

    Edit: referendum would entail direct democracy. That isn’t what happened - it was just a vote by the legislature.

    • papalonian@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      Genuine questions:

      Was he seemingly fairly elected originally, and did he hold elections previously? (I don’t know how Ukrainian elections work or how long he was in office before 2022)

      How “in control” is he of the parliament / the referenda determining elections? Is it a Trump situation where all his buddies are in position to say, “sure! give him all the power!”, or is there more separation?

      I’m admittedly relatively uninformed in the conflict, but I will say it was interesting seeing the general opinion of Lemmy go from “Slava Ukraini, fuck Russian Nazis, here’s some footage of Russian teenagers getting blown up with drones, Trump bad for not wanting to give aid” to “Zelensky is a fascist war criminal and also a Nazi and dumb American liberals are bad for siding with them” seemingly overnight. The switch happened a while ago but it was apparently unanimous.

  • AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml
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    15 days ago

    Who is the third from the left?

    PS: Sorry that was politically incorrect, let me rephrase my question: Who is the second from the far right?

  • gecko@lemmy.ml
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    15 days ago

    those are leaders of the free and democratic world right there . also why cant zelnsky dress normal

  • oyzmo@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    multi party system, you get all the shades / 32bit if you like 🙌🏻. two party system result in us vs them (see US), only black and white / 1bit system.

  • Schlemmy@lemmy.ml
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    15 days ago

    Actually, in a multi party system, it is. If you only have two, or one political flavour you’ll get different results.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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      15 days ago

      The number of parties has fuck all to do with how democratic a particular system is. It’s whose interests the parties represent that matters. In capitalist societies, parties serve the interests of the ruling capital owning class, and the working majority simply gets to pick which member of the exploiting class will rule over them and repress them.

      • Schlemmy@lemmy.ml
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        14 days ago

        The number of parties influences the percentual result.

        You could say that in a 51/49 outcome 49% of the people isn’t represented but it’s still democratic.

        I’m Belgian. We hold the world record in government foundations. I know how small percentages work and am pretty sure it’s democracy at work.

        Do I like it? Not really, but it still democracy.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          14 days ago

          Pluralism has nothing to do with whether or not the will of the people is accurately reflected. One party states often have higher democratic representation because the people can more directly influence policy.

          • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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            14 days ago

            Last elections in Poland seen a whooping 17 parties and over 40 independents elected to sejm. However, you could not find a single socialist among them, not to mention communist, all 17 parties and over 40 independents are representing various flavours of liberalism

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              14 days ago

              Excellent point to make. Pluralism isn’t bad in every case, though it can lead to factionalism of course, but the idea that it’s democratic itself is horribly wrong.

            • Schlemmy@lemmy.ml
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              14 days ago

              Sure. But, the Polish people seem to be happy with a far right representation.

              I really don’t care about left or right. I’ve been working with politicians the last 15 years and I’ve met socialist people on the far right and extremely liberal people on the left. The boring centrist seem to get it right more often but they don’t get elected.

          • Schlemmy@lemmy.ml
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            14 days ago

            Democracy is a compromise. The irony is that by representing everybody partially you’ll never represent anyone fully.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              14 days ago

              Democracy is rule by the majority, which really means in practice a country where the working classes are in control. Bourgeois “democracy” guises capitalist control in a cloak of electoralism, obscuring unpopular candidates with positive wins in the realm of capitalist controlled elections.

              • Schlemmy@lemmy.ml
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                14 days ago

                Dude, half of my country has been ruled by elected socialist for 70 years now. Socialists have been part of the federal government since the 2nd World War and in their prime they formed a purple government together with the liberals.

                Our most liberal party is struggling to get enough votes to participate in tge elections. What you’re on about?

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  14 days ago

                  PTB has a decent and growing foothold in Belgium, which is fantastic, but that’s about as good as it gets in bourgeois democracy, and speaks more to the effectiveness of parties like the PTB than the effectiveness of bourgeois democracy.

  • zephiriz@lemmy.ml
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    15 days ago

    And the reason they haven’t had an elections is because they don’t want this guy to be in charge?

    I wonder if I’ll be down voted?

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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      15 days ago

      My favorite trope is how libs will inevitably start screeching about Russia when faced with the fact that their ideology is midwifing fascism.

    • m532@lemmy.ml
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      15 days ago

      This totally makes sense if we consider the fact that many westerners don’t consider nonwesterners to be people.

      Colonizers can’t choose the presidents of sovereign nations anymore, the people there do the choosing now, and that makes the colonizers furious.

      • zephiriz@lemmy.ml
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        15 days ago

        I’m confused by the comment? Putin is trying to colonize Ukraine. Putin mad because they had a free election to elect the person who is holding his own against an ageing wana be world power in a war going on for years that was supposed to be over in days. Also Putin rig’s his own elections so him demanding is bit well, fix your own shit before you fix someone else. Oh wait Putin does fix his own elections.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          15 days ago

          The Russian Federation is not trying to colonize Ukraine. Their goal is NATO neutrality, and annexation of the four oblasts, which are largely pro-Russian. This is a response to the ethnic repressions against Russians in the Donbass following the coup of Yanukovych in 2014, and the ensuing secession of Donetsk and Luhansk and the civil war that followed.

          The war was never supposed to be over in days. This was circulated as a means to humiliate Russia, but all talks of an attack lasting days either came from many years before 2022, or from the west.

          As for Putin rigging elections, this might be true, but we also know that he is legitimately popular in Russia. The nationalists are most popular, followed by the communists. The pro-western liberals like Navalny was are in the minority and have no real support base.

          • ComradePenguin@lemmy.ml
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            15 days ago

            This goes against my current view of the situation. The NATO expansion is somewhat understandable, not enough for a war perhaps, but unsure.

            Care to point me in the direction to read more about this?

              • ComradePenguin@lemmy.ml
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                15 days ago

                Thanks, exactly what I was looking for! 😄 As a Norwegian pretty much everyone sides with Ukraine, and I have not really challenged that view for myself. I have just accepted the narrative “Russia = imperialistic & bad. Ukraine = democracy & good”. So it’s probably a good idea to try to understand it

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  15 days ago

                  Understandable! It’s one of the more difficult topics for westerners like us to grasp, and it took me some time to come around to the ML consensus on the Russian Federation (ie, it isn’t imperialist if we accept Lenin’s analysis, and actually is anti imperialist even if run by bourgeois oligarchs).

                • Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml
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                  15 days ago

                  Good on you for being open to non-western propaganda sources. Curiosity seems to be mostly dead in the lemmy liberal scene.

          • gdtf@lemmy.ml
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            15 days ago

            Wow, it’s like I’m on reddit all over again. Propaganda hits hard.

              • gdtf@lemmy.ml
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                15 days ago

                I said the absolute contrary. There’s nothing communist about Russia nowadays. It’s as capitalist as it gets.

        • m532@lemmy.ml
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          15 days ago

          You’re overthinking it, my comment was purely about the picture you posted

    • Calfpupa [she/her]@lemmy.ml
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      15 days ago

      You’re saying that of they held an election, people would either vote for Putin or someone that is pro Russia? I thought Ukraine was united against him…

    • GiorgioPerlasca@lemmy.ml
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      15 days ago

      Putin was chosen by Russian oligarchs after the second sovereign default in 10 years.

      He used to carry luggage for the mayor of St Petersburg, Sobchak.

      An Islamic caliphate started a civil war in the South of Russia before he was chosen, this is why Russian oligarchs needed a man with a military backgound.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      14 days ago

      We already understand that, the point is that bourgeois democracy is a farce, as it leads to deeply unpopular figures getting elected. Socialist democracy is necessary.

    • folaht@lemmy.ml
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      14 days ago

      With these numbers, they should be holding new elections.

      Though I do agree,
      the opinion numbers should be put side at side with election numbers
      to showcase how little these politicians care about approval rates once in power.