Kenya is bleeding. Once the darling of post-colonial Africa, the country has descended into mayhem following the waves of violent protests that have engulfed the country in the wake of President Mwai Kibaki’s disputed re-election. The violence has already claimed over 800 lives and displaced a quarter of a million people, many of whom have been forced to resettle in makeshift camps in Kenya’s war-torn Rift Valley region. Bullets and machetes are not the only danger to Kenyans—a recent report by the World Health Organization warned of the risks of disease and sexual violence that threaten the ever-growing numbers of the displaced. Three-quarters of the refugees are women and children, whose lives are endangered by acute shortages of food, clean water and antibiotics.

The trouble began after the incumbent President Kibaki defeated his challenger Raila Odinga by a slim margin on Dec. 27, 2007 in an election that both foreign and local observers believed to be rigged. The election was a pivotal one for the country’s future. Kibaki, an economist whose economic reforms caused staggering albeit unequal economic growth, was pitted against Odinga, a man who promised a more equal distribution of wealth. Experts predicted that Odinga would gain the presidency, carried into power by a message that would resonate among poor voters like those in Nairobi’s Kibera district, Africa’s largest slum.

Odinga immediately cried foul upon the announcement of the results, and thousands of his supporters took to the streets in armed agreement. Kibaki, in response, blamed Odinga for exciting the tribal violence that quickly followed the initial protests. In the ethnic fighting, Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe—historically the most powerful tribe in Kenya—often bore the brunt of the opposition’s frustration. With neither side refusing to back down from their clashing demands, ending the violence through an internal agreement seemed impossible.

Then Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, was selected by the UN and approved by the African Union to head a delegation of foreign diplomats charged with helping the two camps reach an agreement to end the bloodshed and establish a road map for lasting calm. The promise of peace appeared within reach after Annan announced that an agreement had been reached between Kibaki and the opposition on a framework for talks to end the strife. Yet widespread violence has continued. The failure of foreign diplomats to broker a lasting peace demands alternate action.

Currently, there appears no reliable internal path to peace. Kibaki refuses to relinquish power, rejecting proposals for both a re-vote and a power-sharing arrangement. The intensifying violence cannot be quelled by state groups, including the police and the army, for tribal agendas permeate such institutions, thereby rendering them useless. One must, consequently, look outside the country.

The failure of UN and AU-backed diplomats to bring about any lasting agreement simultaneously signals the ineffectiveness of such an approach and demands another course of action. Kenya’s salvation lives not in diplomats but in armed peacekeepers. AU and UN peacekeepers would be able to provide the necessary strength to control the violence. Peacekeepers, unaffiliated with any camp, candidate or tribe, would not be targets themselves but rather neutral police. They could work in the most fractured areas to stop the tribal violence which, as members of the U.S. administration and UN accurately claim, has taken the form of ethnic cleansing. At this point, peacekeepers are the best bandage to stop Kenya’s bleeding.

The upcoming elections in Russia have highlighted, through their unfair and totalitarian handling by the Kremlin, the still troublesome nature of democracy in that country.

The “election” is really not an election at all, but actually a vote of confidence for Vladimir Putin and his party, United Russia. Even though many seats in the next parliament hang in the balance, Putin has used the elections, since his rise to power in 2000, to reinforce the notion that his party is the only one fit for a patriotic Russia. But in fact, it’s the only party that has a chance.

Rival parties (and there are many) suffer many restrictions on their ability to wage a campaign. They’re assemblies are fettered and tightly controlled. The Russian media devotes very little attention to any party other than United Russia, and when they do, it’s almost always negative news. Although billboards and flashy TV ads for United Russia can be found everywhere, opposition ads are few and far between. The propaganda is so pervasive that in a recent poll showed that 8% of people remembered United Russia winning a television debate, despite the fact that no representative from the party was even there!

Not shown on telvision is the beatings and arrests suffered by protesters and demonstrators, like that of former chess champion Garry Kasparov, now head of the Other Russia party, who was recently jailed for 5 days. And perhaps worst of all, many employees of government agencies have reported pressure coming from their higher-ups to vote for Putin or be shown the door.

Dmitri Voronin, a Siberian professor, told the New York Times that he and his associates were told repeatedly by the administration that they had no choice but to vote for Putin.

The election has taken on what could be called a very American character, only with one main candidate instead of two or three. Putin kisses babies, shakes hands, and waves flags while he rails about the liberal leaders who led Russia to political turmoil and the brink of Bankruptcy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He wants to frame his party as the party of power and unity. At his rallies, bands of girls sing “I want a man like Putin, full of strength!” He would like the populous to believe that every vote not for United Russia saps potential greatness, almost akin to treason.

Putin is scheduled to leave office after the presidential election in March, as he cannot serve a 3rd term. However, many pundits think that a landslide vote of confidence for Putin, which is very likely, could give him a mandate to maintain strong political influence in Russia after his term is up, for instance as head of the powerful security council. Besides, the candidate that he endorses in ‘08 will mostly likely win, ensuring that Putin’s hand will be in Russian politics for many years to come.

However, Putin’s high approval rating shows that the Russian people may prefer the stability and wealth represented by Putin (even though that wealth is largely due to an oil boom that shows little regard to political leadership) instead of the democratic notion of an active and contentious party system.

The sad thing is that even without all the violations and restrictions on political Liberty, United Russia would still most likely win. It’s true that Putin has overseen a strong economy and brought rescued Russia from near collapse, and the other parties are not very organized or motivated even without the outside interference. Lev Gudkov, a pollster from the Levada, told The Economist that the only thing result that could have a negative effect on the party would be an extremelty low voter turnout. It’s a shame that what could have been a clean election, one worthy of a true democracy, has turned into an embarrassing farce, without any change in the final results.

This nervousness to allow people freedom of choice is to be expected from a country that was so rooted in totalitarianism for so long. Putin seems to think that squashing other parties is as important to winning an election as is building his own up. Putin, and Russia must learn to trust themselves. If the people are given the ability to choose and different options are laid out and explained clearly and fairly to them, they will usually make the right choice. Russia can take it as an allegory for free market economics. If Russia ever wants the respect it’s political system given the same respect that is given to those of western states (flawed as they may be) it must learn to balance the strength of people acting in large groups with the freedom of choice so essential to a healthy democracy.