The well was fundamentally poisoned when it came to implementing “democracy” in post-Soviet states; if the idea was, no more communist totalitarianism, no more state party, you can pick from multiple parties, that runs into a self-defeating issue for liberalism if the people just end up voting for the communist party. So they implemented de facto, or just outright explicit, bans on the communist party from gaining power. Being rigged was baked in.
The well was fundamentally poisoned when it came to implementing “democracy” in post-Soviet states; if the idea was, no more communist totalitarianism, no more state party, you can pick from multiple parties, that runs into a self-defeating issue for liberalism if the people just end up voting for the communist party. So they implemented de facto, or just outright explicit, bans on the communist party from gaining power. Being rigged was baked in.