A Funeral for Russian Democracy

More cryptic words out of Dmitry Medvedev regarding the recent parliamentary elections, which many, including Mikhail Gorbachev, claim were blatantly rigged.  Some reporters came away from his Saturday comments to opposition leaders believing that he was open to incorporating new ideas, while reports, like this one from the Associated Press, sees Medvedev as digging deeper in the trenches.

Medvedev on Saturday grimly joked that he had worn black to his meeting with opposition leaders because he feared his guests expected “a burial of democracy.”

“I agreed to meet with you and discuss the outcomes of the elections to local legislatures and local self-government bodies so that this all should not turn into a burial of democracy and the electoral system here,” Medvedev told opposition leaders in his televised comments.

“Overall, the election was organized well enough,” he said. “There are different assessments (of the outcome) among parliamentary parties, but that’s easily understood, because, as a rule, those who win treat the results as positive” while the losers have a different opinion.

I think Medvedev was wearing the same outfit he did for that scary podcast threatening to attack Ukraine.