Posts Tagged ‘elections’
Vladimir Putin: Russia’s once and future president
The former KGB agent is elected to his third term as Russia’s president. But do Russians really respect him?
Was Putin fairly elected?
Not remotely, but that’s not to say anyone could have beaten him. Since he first took the helm in Russia, in 1999, Vladimir Putin has ruled with a modified form of Soviet-style authoritarianism that he calls “managed democracy.” The idea is that weakened state institutions, including the electoral system, yield to the designs of a strong leader. That entails some outright fraud; monitors found evidence of “carousel voting,” in which busloads of voters travel around casting ballots under different names, and in Chechnya, more pro-Putin votes were counted than there were registered voters. But managed democracy relies even more on subtler manipulations. Technical reasons are found to prevent opposition parties from registering. Massive state resources, including almost all TV and radio news, are brought to bear in favor of the Kremlin. Phony “opposition candidates” are put forward. Those tactics delivered Putin an official victory of almost 64 percent. That number was surely inflated, but Putin does inspire heartfelt devotion among many Russians.
Why do they admire him?
Putin represents stability, a welcome contrast to the chaos of the first decade after the Soviet Union dissolved, in 1991. Under Boris Yeltsin, a few tycoons, known as oligarchs, were allowed to plunder state resources in a period of wild privatization that plunged millions into poverty. Putin reversed that process, reasserting firm central control over Russian resources. During his reign, the Russian economy has grown by an average of 7 percent a year, poverty has been halved, and the average monthly salary of Russians has more than tripled. High global prices for Russia’s vast oil and natural gas resources played a big role in that success. But many Russians give Putin credit for the fact that they are much better off than ever before.
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Statement to the European parliament about Russian Elections by HR Catherine Ashton
Statement to the European parliament on the outcome of Presidential elections in Russia on behalf of HR CatherineAshton delivered by Danish Foreign Minster Villy Søvndal
Strasbourg 14 March
Mr. President, Honourable Members,
It is my pleasure to be here today to discuss with you the outcome of the Presidential elections in
Russia on behalf of High Representative/Vice-President Ashton.
Let me first of all thank Parliament for the strong voice it has consistently been giving to European
citizens’ concerns about democracy, fair elections and human rights in Russia.
Russia is our largest neighbor, an important business partner and indeed a Strategic Partner for many global and regional issues. So it matters to our citizens what the situation with human rights and the rule of law is in Russia.
Parliament has followed both the Russian State Duma elections of 4 December and the Presidential
elections of 4 March very closely.
It has adopted several resolutions expressing the expectations of European citizens for Russia to live
up to her international commitments to ensure free and fair elections. You have also given High Representative/Vice President Ashton several opportunities to address the Plenary on these crucial issues.
In addition, several hearings have taken place since December on these elections and on human rights more generally, organized by the Foreign Affairs Committee, by the Subcommittee on Human Rights, by the Parliamentary Cooperation Committee with Russia, and by individual political groups.
Catherine Ashton has asked me to thank Parliament for all this important work. She also asked me to in particular convey the message that she shares Parliament’s concerns about the case of the arrest and death in pre-trial detention of lawyer Sergey Magnitsky.
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‘It Is Completely Naive To Think Anything Will Change After Russia’s Election’
We interviewed a bunch of experts about the significance of Russia’s March 4 election.
Bill Browder is the head of Hermitage Capital Management, which one controlled almost $4.5 billion worth of investments in Russia. He was barred from entering the country in 2005, and the death of Hermitage lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison in 2009 led to international condemnation. His comments are below.
“It is completely naive to think anything is going to change after this election.
“First of all, Putin has been in power for the last 12 years. Anyone who made the mistake of thinking Medvedev was in power, at this point, it’s pretty obvious that he wasn’t.
“If you go back and read any of Putin’s speeches, he said all sorts of things that looked good on paper. But none of them have ever been implemented, and it’s very clear why: because implementing real reforms would mean that Putin and the people around him could not be able to engage in all these financial crimes, which have made them so wealthy.
“The Russian government doesn’t function to serve the national interest by collecting taxes and providing services as most governments do.
“The current regime collects taxes so that the people in the government can steal that money. They steal it either directly, as Sergei discovered when he came across a $230 million tax rebate fraud involving government officials, or they steal it through other means, like enormous kickbacks from building roads and pipelines, and kickbacks from buying equipment for hospitals.
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ECFR: The end of the Putin consensus
Putin’s return: why Europe should prepare for a weaker Putin. On Sunday 4th March Russians will chose their next president. Although Vladimir Putin is certain to win, it will be a hollow victory and his next presidency will be weaker than before.
After the ‘phantom presidency’ of Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir Putin will find himself president of a changed Russia. Central authority is weaker, the economy is faltering and the restless middle classes are confident enough to protest against the government.
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Putin and his cronies have plundered Russia for a decade, but though he’ll win Sunday’s sham election, his days are numbered
For the past four years, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, and his sidekick Dmitry Medvedev, who has the nominal post of president, have been engaged in a huge propaganda operation to fool Russians and the West.
With much fanfare, they have pretended to reform their benighted land. Mr Medvedev denounced corruption, and they pretended to be friends with the West, particularly through a warming of their relations with the U.S. in 2009.
But this has been a sham to conceal the truth: that Russia is shamefully misruled.
The ruling former KGB regime has squandered tens of billions of pounds and missed a once-in-a-lifetime chance to modernise the country.
It has no real interest in friendship or co-operation with the West, whatever our gullible diplomats and officials may think. It wants to launder money in London, but not to adopt our values of liberty or the rule of law.
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Moscow protest: Thousands rally against Vladimir Putin
Tens of thousands of people have rallied in central Moscow in a show of anger at alleged electoral fraud.They passed a resolution “not to give a single vote to (PM) Vladimir Putin” at next year’s presidential elections.
Protest leader Alexei Navalny told the crowd to loud applause that Russians would no longer tolerate corruption.
“I see enough people here to take the Kremlin and [Government House] right now but we are peaceful people and won’t do that just yet,” he said.
Demonstrators say parliamentary elections on 4 December, which were won by Mr Putin’s party, were rigged. The government denies the accusation.
A spokesman for Mr Putin, currently Russian prime minister, later said that “the majority of the population” supported him, describing the protesters as a minority.
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Public scoff’s over president’s online bid to probe vote fraud
President Dmitry Medvedev used his Facebook page Sunday to disclose that he had ordered an investigation into reports of election fraud, a statement his audience greeted with derision.
The posting quickly went viral, and drew more than 8,000 mostly offended and even offensive comments in a little over six hours, revealing the depth of the disillusionment with Mr. Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and their government. Tens of thousands of Russians spoke up in demonstrations across the country Saturday, protesting the Dec. 4 parliamentary elections, and they apparently had no intention of returning to their former silence.
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FPI Analysis: Moving Beyond the U.S.-Russian “Reset”
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A Year Before Elections, What About Russia’s Corruption Fight?
The highly publicized cases of Sergei Magnitsky — a 37-year-old lawyer who died in pretrial detention in November 2009 after exposing a multimillion-dollar fraud against the Russian taxpayer — and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed business magnate who was sentenced at the end of 2010 to remain in prison through 2017, have again put the international spotlight on corruption in the Russian state.
By the time of his death, the ailing Magnitsky had been complaining for weeks that he was being denied adequate medical treatment for acute stomach pain. The subsequent inquiry into his demise represented a serious miscarriage of justice. Khodorkovsky’s latest case gained notoriety for the brazenly irregular manner in which he was charged and convicted of embezzling his own company’s oil, apparently with the predetermined goal of keeping him behind bars at all costs.
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