Feanor

For once i can see why Putin shut down the opposition parties. Most of them are so ridiculously small, they just clutter the Duma and make random statements, pursuing obscure courses in policy. The voter intimidation is nothing new. It happened during the last election, I'd be surprised if it didn't happen during this one. Firral he doesn't challenge the LDPR or KPRF for several reasons. Neither can even win the election, and they've proven it by consistently coming in second and third place, far enough to not even be able to compete. Also they're too large to disqualify for strange reasons. And finally they're both clowns. Zhirinovsky has no viable platform, and the CPRF only enjoys the support of the older generation. They have no real future. Putin has shut down the minor opposition parties that could eventually have grown into viable competitors, and what remains will never challenge him openly. The largest unofficial party, the NBP, was already declared illegal. Nothing surprising that now the same is happening to real parties.

Dreadnought

Please, dont believe for a moment that what Hollywood puts out is truth. Hollywood has lost a grand majority of stars that didn't get into politics or the rest of the drivel that they do today. Hell look at Michael Moore that should tell you right there that they are not interested in truth just what happens to be politically popular at the time and sells.

Hollywood is nothing but a mere shadow of what it was when quality pictures was the order of the day and now they cant even control their dam children from being morons,drugs,drunk driving,bad parents etc.

If you are beleagered to vote for fear of reprisal then your nothing more then a body and taxes to "mother russia". I dont believe for a moment that Putins the brightest man in Russia that actually has Russia and its people in his heart. It sounds nothing more then apathy for the West and a policed state to crown himself Tzar for however long he wishes and if you are fools enough to allow him a timeless appointment then you deserve exactly what you get.

And rights? We wont even go there.


When you say that Putin has shut down the other parties I had to read that twice. NO MAN should weild that kind of power alone. It is authoritive and dictator type thinking like that -that should be sounding the alarm to all Russians. It should be against your own Constitution and is true form of what we are discussing here and now. If this is what he has to do to win then clearly he is a bad choice as far as rights go but if your economy is moving then perhaps you are willing to sell your rights for the economy. So be.

One thing I have always noticed when I am abroad (countless times the closest to Russia was Prauge) is the fact that I know in my heart there is no better place then America. And the further I travel the clearer it becomes and thats exactly why it called to our older generations and immigrants alike. The light burns the brightest right here and here is where the chance be for a better life.

__________________
Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

Dreadnought

PS sorry for the spelling.

Feanor

And yet everyone jumps on me and bashes me when I support anti-Putin protests and marches

dalem

Yep, you deserve the new Czar.

Have fun, Udarnik!

-dale

Feanor

What? How?

EDIT: Saying I can see why doesn't mean I agree or condone. It means I understand.

Kansas Bear

Kasparov: Russian election a farce

MOSCOW - The former world chess champion is awaiting his opponent's next move.

Garry Kasparov, released from jail after serving a five-day sentence for leading a protest against Vladimir Putin, acknowledged Friday he holds the weaker position in his confrontation with the Russian president.

But Kasparov predicted the upcoming election season, which begins with Sunday's parliamentary vote, will force the secretive Putin to reveal his strategy in the nail-biting political game gripping the country as Putin's time in the Kremlin runs out.

As the campaign for the March 2 presidential vote gathers pace, Kasparov said, the Kremlin's beleaguered, fractious opponents can regroup for a new push aimed at "dismantling Putin's regime."

He hopes their ranks will be strengthened following Sunday's vote, which will also push dissenting voices further to the margins.

With Putin leading the ticket of the main pro-Kremlin party, United Russia, government authorities have made an all-out effort to secure an overwhelming victory. Watchdog groups alleged this week that government officials across Russia have been using their powers to intimidate opposition campaign workers and candidates.

Putin has cast the election as a crucial vote for continuity — and suggested that a convincing United Russia win would give him a popular mandate to retain influence after the presidential vote, in which he is barred from seeking a third term.

Kasparov labeled Sunday's vote a farce that will push the country toward dictatorship.

Maneuvering to maintain control, Putin has sprung a series of surprises on Russians, but kept them guessing about his specific plans. Unlike in chess, Kasparov said, "the only rule in our game with the Kremlin is that the Kremlin changes the rules whenever it sees fit."

"Materially, we are now the weaker side, we cannot dictate our game," the former world chess champion told a news conference. "And the rule I've learned all my life is that if your position is weaker, you must await the active moves of your opponent."

That will happen, he said, by the Dec. 23 deadline for nominating candidates for the presidential vote. Putin is expected to name a favored successor, who would almost certainly win; Kasparov said he did not rule out that Putin would seek to remain president.

"Now our opponent must make a move that will draw him into a game with rules ... and then we will be able to respond," he said. "Whatever happens, I believe that at the beginning of next year, a real opposition to the regime will begin to form in Russia."

Sunday's vote, he said, will bring "total domination by United Russia."

"Russia today does not correspond to even the most primitive idea of a democratic state," he said. It is "an authoritarian state with a very serious tendency toward single-party dictatorship."

Aside from United Russia, only one party — the Communists — appears certain to clear the 7 percent threshold needed to win seats in the 450-member State Duma, the lower house of parliament.

Kasparov, who has struggled to attract more than a few thousand people to protests he has led over the past year, said more people could join opposition groups after the vote.

Opinion polls put Putin's approval rating around 80 percent and indicate United Russia could win that proportion of parliament seats. But Kasparov, citing rising prices and the gap between rich and poor, says there is much more discontent.

He asserted that the heavy-handed campaign being carried out by United Russia is motivated by Putin's awareness of that discontent.

"He knows that the real situation in Russia is far, far apart from the virtual reality he presents on television," he said.

Kasparov has sought to harness opposition through a series of street protests called Dissenters' Marches, several of which have been violently broken up by police. The Other Russia has voted to nominate him as its presidential candidate.

He has been detained several times, and last Saturday he was sentenced to five days in jail, convicted of leading an illegal march, chanting anti-Putin slogans and resisting arrest during a Moscow protest.

Kasparov said he and others jailed were denied access to lawyers and visitors.

"The authorities ... are ignoring the constitutional minimum that was followed even in the Soviet Union," he said.

Kasparov: Russian election a farce - Yahoo! News

Adux

Election will be farce for Kasprov, since he has no chance in hell of winning. Somehow supporting "liberal moron" of some other country seems fine with our right-wingers.

Feanor

As opposed to supporting . . . . . . . . Limonov? Or maybe Zyuganov? oh wait I know lets back Zhirinovsky. Come on. Who are they going to support?

Ok lets take a more serious look here. If Putin was afraid of losing he would not have shut down the small opposition parties. They steal votes from the united opposition candidate and only help Putin. Yet if he was confident he was going to win then he would not be intimidating people and limiting the number of observers. We have two lines of behavior that are incompatible. There might be more forces at work here that we (the public) do not see. There has been much talk of the KGB being behind Putin, but we have yet to see conclusive evidence. Well if my guess is right then we just might get some in the coming election.

Adux

I by no means believe Putin is an angel, But I am not going to be led into how Putin, is some evil dic'k'tator by Chirstina Amanapour on CNN. West has their interest to keep, and I understand but it is the moral grandstanding that i cant stand, when it is just the pot calling kettle black. Russia is a threat and a serious one at that, West wanted to push Russia as they did with Yelstien not something that is possible with Putin and his oil money.

Are you telling me, Putin would not have won if he didnt close down the smaller parties? I rather look at some other reason for that, cuz wining elections didnt require him to do that.

Feanor

That's not what I said. I said very clearly that the small opposition parties help Putin by stealing votes from the major opposition parties (their audiences are usually anti-Putin). If he was afraid of losing he shouldn't have shut them down. If he's not afraid of losing then why is he intimidating voters (and is it him, or has maybe Nashi gotten out of hand a bit).

Adux

Maybe the subjects are doing more than the King himself!!
With 80% approval ratings, and on verge of defeating all his opposers by a whopping 2/3rd majority. I dont think Putin needs to do anything. It is a landslide, as I said reasons can be something else. This just dont add up. After Listening to Christiana Amanpour on Putin, and the sheer biases of her coverage has astouded me and assured me how seriously the west see's Putin's Russia to their way of life.

Feanor

Voting begins in Russian election

By Colin Freeman and Nick Holdsworth in Moscow
Last Updated: 9:30am GMT 02/12/2007

Russians headed to the polls today in general elections expected to hand President Vladimir Putin's party a crushing majority.

But the elections, widely viewed as a referendum on Mr Putin, have been overshadowed by opposition accusations of marginalisation.

Russia's beleaguered opposition parties have accused the government of stifling their campaigns.

They have urged their supporters to spoil their ballots as a protest against Kremlin moves to stop them winning seats.

The call comes from former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, whose "Other Russia" coalition of anti-government groups is banned from standing after falling foul of tough new Kremlin criteria for registering political parties.

He claims the election has been blatantly rigged to guarantee a landslide for President Vladimir Putin's favoured party, United Russia, which is tipped to get between 60 and 70 per cent of the vote for seats in the parliamentary Duma.

"The total of spoiled papers, along with votes cast for parties that oppose President Vladimir Putin, will give a clear indication of the true size of the opposition in Russia," Mr Kasparov said.
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"Anybody who does not vote for United Russia is not voting for Mr Putin."

About 109 million voters across Russia's 11 different time zones will cast ballots today, in what Mr Kasparov and other critics have dismissed as a "farce" vote designed to shore up Mr Putin's authoritarian rule.

The Kremlin has been accused of preventing opposition groups getting coverage on state television, and of harassing them when they have tried to campaign. Last week, Mr Kasparov spent five days in jail for public order offences after being arrested during an anti-government rally.

The odds have been further stacked in Mr Putin's favour by a new rule that stipulates that parties must win at least seven per cent of votes to be allowed to hold office.

The only opposition party likely to do so is the Communists; the two main pro-Western parties contesting the elections, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, have too small a following to clear the threshold.

Moreover, parties who fall below the threshold will then have their ballots distributed proportionally to those who do, bolstering the vote even more for United Russia.

Among shoppers yesterday at Moscow's frost-encased Tishinsky Square market, Alexander Makarov, 58, a manager of a technical trading firm, was typical of many who said they would vote for Mr Putin.

"Putin, like any president, brings his own people into power with him, but he has given us order and stability," he said. "Wages and pensions are paid on time."

Polina Amanyeva, 58, also expressed support for Mr Putin.

"He's a good man. Any woman would love to see him in her house," she said at a Moscow polling station where she said she voted for United Russia.

But Ivan Petrov, 26, a computer programmer, said: "The election is just one big fake - supporting one party or the other is not going to make any difference.

"I am going to put a 'smiley face' all over the ballot so that all the voting boxes are crossed out. It is a good way to register my protest."

Having served two terms in office as president, Mr Putin is constitutionally obliged to step down at the next presidential election in March. But a huge vote for his party would give him a massive popular mandate, paving the way for him to remain effectively in charge of the country.

As well as choosing his favoured successor as president, United Russia is also expected to nominate Mr Putin for the post of prime minister.

Should it secure a 66 per cent majority in today's vote, the party will also be able to change the country's constitution - a power that could be used to boost Mr Putin's prime ministerial roles and possibly overturn rules preventing him returning as president.

That could allow Mr Putin to have at least one more term, or give him new and much wider powers in some other, as yet undefined, "national leader role", said Lilia Shev*tsova, a Moscow-based independent political analyst.

"The higher the voter turnout and the higher the vote for United Russia, the more it will offer a new legitimacy for Putin," she said. "It will weaken the next president, and create a duality of power between him and Mr Putin."

Nonetheless, the widespread sense that the election contest is a foregone conclusion could backfire for Mr Putin. Many are so confident he will win that they are not expected to bother voting, which could leave his party short of a two-thirds majority.

Ray

Putin is no angel nor is he a demon.

He is what is good for Russia and maybe not for the world.

Journalists tend to sell their paper with sensationalism!

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Ironduke

I haven't read much in this thread, but from what I'm aware, Putin has genuine mass popular support in Russia. While some of his actions are anti-democratic, this doesn't change anything. Russia is wealthier than at any time than it has been since the fall of the Soviet Union, and without wanting to overgeneralize the Russians, they have an appreciation for a leader who is a strongman that provides security and stability, even if they are somewhat autocratic.

Putin's party has just massively won the Russian parliamentary elections. While there are some complaints from different quarters, I don't think anyone can deny Putin's mandate in Russia now.
Read more here: Putin's party sweeps to victory - CNN.com

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The Buck Stops Here