[A. Pole]

Hugo Chavez emulated Vladimir Putin in winning Re-election through fradulent means.

Oh really?

Let us see, these are the results of 2004 elections:

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Vladimir Putin - United Russia 48,931,376 - 71.2%

Nikolay Kharitonov - Communist Party of the Russian Federation 9,440,860 - 13.7%

Sergey Glazyev - populist supported by Rodina 2,826,641 - 4.1%

Irina Khakamada - open society/free market 2,644,644 3.8%

Oleg Malyshkin Liberal - Democratic Party of Russia (of Zhirinovsky) - 1,394,070 2.0%

Sergey Mironov - pro-Putin :) Russian Party of Life 518,893 - 0.8%

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So according to you Putin has stolen the presidency from Khakamada?

[Sam Hill]

Defending Putin is always topic A isn't it?

Even on a thread about Chavez.

Do you and your colleagues get "alerts" from keyword programs that pickup any mention of your boss?

[BlackElk]

That Putin stole the election from Irina Khakamada or from Horation Alger or from anyone else is a lot more likely than that it was an honest election. Litvinenko is as likely to have died of natural causes as that Russian elections are honest.