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Early results showed Vladimir Putin's party winning more than 60 percent of the vote Sunday in a parliamentary election that could pave the way for him to remain the country's leader even when he steps down as president.

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In as much as I reject terms like hero, saviour, and The One, I also reject terms like Satan, Great Satan, and Hitler.

Putin is a politician leading a state with "interests." The Russian people appear to approve of his work, For someone all uppity about elections I am surprised you don't endorse his multi-party democratic election victory.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Apparently the Communist Party will get about 11% of the vote. I guess the other 89% have no desire to go back to the communist system.

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The Necessity of Gangster Capitalism:
Primitive Accumulation in Russia and China Monthly Review Feb 2000

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Some measure of the depth of despair among the victims of the transition to capitalism in Russia is revealed in a poll on attitudes to reform.

When asked, "What economic system would you prefer?" 48 percent of Russians polled said they would prefer "state planning and distribution," while just 35 percent preferred "private property and the market."

To the statement "It would have been better if the country had stayed as it was before 1985," 58 percent answered "yes;" only 27 percent said "no." See the Economist, December 18, 1999, p. 21

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And I looked for that Angus-Reid opinion poll on whether the USSR should have been saved or not conducted in: Russia, Bielorussia and Ukraine but couldn't locate it.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

But that said, I find him to be scary demagogue with a very cavalier attitude towards human rights and he doesn't appear to have any social conscience whatsoever either.

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I don't know about Putin. He's definitely not what the U.S. had in mind after propping up Yeltsin in the 90's. He promises to reduce poverty and double GDP by 2010, and all the while spending on modernizing the military. Sounds too all too familiar.

The Communists are the only opposition elected to challenge Putin. The fact that only AR (plus allies) and the Communists are the only parties elected says it all about the disgust Russians have toward what was done to their country in the 90's. Back then Yeltsin used tanks and shells to wipe out the communist opposition, yet not a word of protest about "democracy" came from the west.

The corporate media has lost all credibility. Their coverage of the orange, rose, cedar or any other "revolution" was nothing but stage managed propaganda. Now that they've all fallen apart, their silence is deafening.

Where is the increase in populational liberty in the US, China & Russia ? I wish I could believe in some scenario where they do not clamp down on perceived ideological enemies, but given the massive amount of wealth and power being threatened by those oppositional voices, they view them as a threat and simply clamp down hard, almost like a reflex of power.

Maybe, with the exponential increases in population, the powers of the state in taking aggressive action against perceived ideological threats simply grows along with it.

And maybe, just maybe, a competitive and defensive reaction to decades of US foreign policy domination and imperialistic meddling, exacerbates it. Which just shows the exponential & circular nature of international authoritarianism.

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I'm always curious why they never have docs like that about Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Colombia or any other of the US colonies.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

Because none of those countries have over 200 million people, the world's largest land mass and an arsenal of nuclear weapons.

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Yes, the vicious empire already dominates and controls Latin America, a region of the world with over half a billion people and enormous natural resource wealth, cheap labour to exploit at will etc. The capitalist system in the USSA(and Canada) is supported up by a number of hidden props deemed not-so news-worthy.

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Posted by Peppered Pothead: On a pessimistic note, I'd like to pose a question. Isn't it mathematically inevitable that the largest, most populous and most dominant countries on the international scene become more & more authoritarian, especially WRT domestic social policy and police powers?

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I'm decidedly more optimistic about Russia's prospects.

Is it possible that despite its irregularities and imperfections, United Russia won decisively because most Russians support Putin's policies and want him to continue playing a leadership role after he steps down as President?

In one important respect, Russian parliamentary elections are more democratic than Canada's. Russian elections use proportional representation, albeit with a rather high threshold of 7 per cent.

If Russian had a FPTP system like Canada's, the opposition parties would have been wiped off the map had they received only a combined 36% of the vote. Meanwhile, there will still be three viable opposition parties in the Russian Parliament thanks to PR.

[ 03 December 2007: Message edited by: John K ]

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Originally posted by John K:

I'm decidedly more optimistic about Russia's prospects.

Is it possible that despite its irregularities and imperfections, United Russia won decisively because most Russians support Putin's policies and want him to continue playing a leadership role after he steps down as President?

In one important respect, Russian parliamentary elections are more democratic than Canada's. Russian elections use proportional representation, albeit with a rather high threshold of 7 per cent.

If Russian had a FPTP system like Canada's, the opposition parties would have been wiped off the map had they received only a combined 36% of the vote. Meanwhile, there will still be three viable opposition parties in the Russian Parliament thanks to PR.

[ 03 December 2007: Message edited by: John K ]

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The evidence is overwhelming that the lives and well being of the Russian populace is far better off now than it was, 5, 10, 15, 20, even 25 years ago, there is no doubt. They have used some state corporatism and global competitiveness, selling many natural resource based energy products to wealthy & highly consumptive Scandinavia & Europe, in order to fuel their economy and help their socio-economic statistics and indicators.

But my point was more about competitive authoritarianism among the biggest international powers. The US has entrenched themselves in an Authoritarian upper-right quadrant, so we see Russia defensively mirroring, at least domestically, the same sort of hardline *foreign* stances which have been perpetrated by the US for 80 years. If the US were NON-authoritarian capitalist for 80 years (in the lower-right quadrant), would Russia be so compelled to be as authoritarian as they are WRT clampdowns, intimidations, media access, etc. ?

http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection

My theory is that authoritarianism is contagious among the biggest world powers. I don't believe it is mandatory or moral, but more of a defensive-competitive reflex.

[ 04 December 2007: Message edited by: Peppered Pothead ]

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Originally posted by a lonely worker:
I'm always curious why they never have docs like that about Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Colombia or any other of the US colonies.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

Because none of those countries have over 200 million people, the world's largest land mass and an arsenal of nuclear weapons.

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Neither does Russia, but you've made my point first, I see.

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Originally posted by Peppered Pothead:

The evidence is overwhelming that the lives and well being of the Russian populace is far better off now than it was, 5, 10, 15, 20, even 25 years ago, there is no doubt.

[ 04 December 2007: Message edited by: Peppered Pothead ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Jeez, you know we're stuck in a frozen hoser time warp when the Russians have a fairer voting system.

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Worse, parties that receive less than 2 percent of the vote must reimburse the state at commercial rates for the free broadcast airtime and space in state newspapers that was allotted to them during the campaign. In addition, parties that failed to receive 4 percent of the vote will forfeit the 60 million-ruble deposit that they submitted to participate in the elections.

[ 04 December 2007: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

My boyfriend is in trouble again,
He got into a fight and got stoned on something,
I am sick of him and so I told him, 'get out of here',
And now I want a man like Putin.
A man like Putin, full of energy,
A man like Putin who doesn't drink,
A man like Putin who wouldn't hurt me,
A man like Putin who wouldn't run away from me.
I saw him in the news yesterday,
He was saying the world was at the crossroads,
It's easy with a man like him at home or out and about,
And now I want a man like Putin.

Check out the video!

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Originally posted by Geneva:
funny : Bush, Putin, Sarkozy all (now) dry, and esp. the last two in heavy drinking cultures

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The figures indicated that 99.2 percent of voters in the war-ravaged region of southern Russia had taken part in the poll and 99.3 percent of them had voted for United Russia.

This was the highest vote for Putin anywhere in Russia, where overall turnout was 62 percent and just over 64 percent of votes were cast for United Russia.

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MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin formally declared Monday that he intended to become prime minister next year, ensuring his dominance of the Russian government even after his term ends.

Putin said at a meeting of his party, United Russia, that he had accepted an offer from his close aide Dmitri Medvedev to move to the prime minister's office if Medvedev wins the presidency in March, which is highly likely.

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