When the Kremlin decided to rig the ballot openly, fury boiled over.After a decade of "stability", Russia now looks as vulnerable to shock as the Soviet Union was at the end of its days.
When the Welsh Labour Party looked as if it might choose Rhodri Morgan, a popular and independent-minded man, to replace Mr Davies, the Labour leadership in London moved ruthlessly to rig the ballot.
Parliamentary elections held in Syria in April 2007 sparked violent protests in Al-Raqqa, Al-Hasakah, and Homs after local officials attempted to rig the balloting in favour of pro-regime candidates.
Stephen Barlow's staging of Tosca updates the opera to 1968, the year of unrest and revolution, and sets it during a general election where someone is attempting to rig the ballot box.
Although the six other presidential candidates continue to meet and repeat claims that the army rigged the ballot in Mr Bouteflika's favour, their resolve is already faltering.
Aung Naing Oo, an exiled Burmese analyst, says activists see it as a potential spark for resistance, particularly if the army clumsily rigs the ballot.
They have argued that the offer on which the referendum is based was withdrawn when the bailout programme ran out and that Syriza has rigged the ballot by putting both options on one ballot sheet with the no option first.
On Saturday, Johnson and Tubman and several other opposition parties announced they were withdrawing from the election over allegations that officials had rigged the ballot count in favour of Sirleaf.
But the more eyes are on Zimbabwe in the next five weeks, the better documented his cheating will be, and the harder it will be for him to claim that he has won.If he rigs the ballot too blatantly, Zimbabwe's largest cities, where he has little support, may explode.
