Or maybe western democracies do demand higher standards of transparency. Notice which countries called to congratulate Maduro immediately without waiting a day to find out if any the announced results were valid: Russia, Iran and Cuba. Paragons of liberty.

s/(non-)?western//g

> See when democracies do it, it's ¨just to make it simpler"

> When dictatorships do it, it's "fraud".

Seems plausible.

Credentials and reputation matter.

In western democracies, among others, we use "" to denote that we are quoting somebody.

In western countries power is handed over routinely amongst political enemies. So what, the incumbent is cooking the books to give power to their rival? If power is being handed over, where is the book cooking?

Here they are staying in power.

You think the Liberals in Australia wanted to give power over to Labor? You think Obama liked having Trump follow him? Macron cooked the votes so his own party lost the majority?