KEY POINTS:
A year ago it would have been only predictable that China and Russia would veto whatever steps the United Nations Security Council might take against a regime as despicable as Robert Mugabe's in Zimbabwe. This year, there were reasons to hope for better. China, mindful of its image
for the Olympic Games, has tempered its totalitarian instincts in response to riots in Tibet and allowed fairly open reporting of its recent earthquake. And Russia, now democratic in its oligarchical way, supported a resolution against Zimbabwe's leadership at a meeting of the G8 just days before the Security Council session.
But true to previous form, they both voted against a motion that would have frozen the foreign assets of Mugabe and 13 of his henchmen, banned their travel, and put the country under an arms embargo. It would have been the least the UN could do.
Russia and China claimed the sanctions could have undermined talks between the regime and opposition parties in Zimbabwe mediated by South Africa, which also voted against the draft resolution, as did Libya and Vietnam. But it was the votes of the dissenting permanent members that carried the day, the first double veto since the same pair blocked a resolution against Myanmar 18 months ago.
Mugabe may not be the crudest dictator in Africa - which, considering the competition, is not saying very much for him - but few have delivered a more calculated insult to ever-hopeful voters and to the principle of democracy. When the latest presidential election produced what must have been an overwhelming vote against him, the regime simply refused to declare a result. Instead, it called a second election and set about its usual methods of discouraging opposition and terrorising possible voters.
The farce was, of course, just the latest blow to a country that has been brought to economic ruin by a leader who came to power as a liberating hero and somehow retains enough of that aura among Africans to discourage neighbouring states from taking actions that could liberate Zimbabwe from him. The world was disgusted but not surprised when the African Union embraced him at its recent summit in Egypt. If votes were the measure of legitimacy for membership of that body, not many could turn up.
There was a time when the same could be said of the United Nations. But since the collapse of European communism, the fall of right-wing dictators in Latin America, South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia, and indeed the liberation of southern Africa, the roll-call of democracies has been growing. Of the present 15 members of the Security Council, 10 could be classed as democracies.
Only two of the 10, Russia and South Africa, voted against the sanctions on Zimbabwe, and Indonesia abstained. The motion passed on votes but was vetoed by two permanent members who plainly have no more regard for the majority will of the council than for that of the people of Zimbabwe.
China is not in a position to preach electoral values but Russia's reasons for exercising the veto are harder to fathom, especially after President Dmitri Medvedev went along with the rest of the G8 in Tokyo. The reversal in New York tends to confirm Medvedev is the puppet of his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, who has done much to tarnish Russian politics.
A United States presidential candidate, John McCain, has proposed that countries upholding electoral rights form a "League of Democracies".
The need for some such body, capable of enforcing collective sanctions against those who steal power, grows with every abject UN failure.