By Gideon Rachman

This weekend offered a rogues’ gallery of phoney democracy in action. In Russia it was announced that Vladimir Putin had been swept back to the Kremlin, after a suspiciously smashing first-round victory in the presidential election. Iran staged its first parliamentary elections since the rigged presidential poll of 2009 and the violent suppression of the Green movement. And in China, the National People’s Congress – the country’s rubber-stamp parliament – assembled for its annual meeting. It is a coincidence – but perhaps no accident – that these are the three nations that have emerged as the closest protectors of Syria’s murderous one-party state. Read more