Kwasniewski and Being "Good at Politics"

Poland has enjoyed significantly more success transitioning to democracy following the breakup of the USSR than many of its neighbors, who to this day have yet to establish working democratic regimes. Kwasniewski’s comment today that he is “good at politics” since he has “won many elections” nonetheless conjured up thoughts of Michael McFaul’s essay “Transitions From Post-communism” and in particular the remarks on independent election monitoring and voter fraud.
McFaul discusses the immeasurable importance of NGOs’ ability to accurately and independently monitor elections in order to be able to determine whether the results are fraudulent. Even before reading this article, I had a definite perception of the farce that elections are in many parts of the world. Moreover, in his conclusion, McFaul remarks, “A more popular or more clever and ruthless autocrat might have been able to outmaneuver the democratic opposition.” I think there’s a tendency of all times to sort of look down on the past and exalt the present as a kind of pinnacle. We remember renaissance Italy’s politics through Machiavelli. Will we remember Eastern Europe’s politics through the Milosevices and Kuchmas? Maybe as distrust of civic organizations diminishes as the memory of the Soviet Union fades these other nations will have a better shot at democratic regimes.