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...during the late-January protest. Alongside local activists, they called not only for lower taxes, more jobs and a new governor but for an end to Putin's reign. Nemtsov was the most prominent figure to speak. A popular governor of Nizhny Novgorod in the 1990s and a Deputy Prime Minister under President Boris Yeltsin, he took the stage in a bomber jacket and jeans. "Moscow is sucking the money from the regions as if they were its colonies," he said. "Until we oust this corrupt police state, we will never achieve a thing." There was a swell of applause...
Russia's opposition has long been fond of the word de-Putinization, which to those who dream of such things is a different way of saying "progress." It reflects the rather starry-eyed belief that if Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his circle fall from grace, change will come immediately and Russia will morph into Europe. For years, the opposition movement's strategy has been to rub away at Putin's credibility "like drops of water on a cinderblock," as one of its leading figures, Boris Nemtsov, puts it. For most of that time, the impact of their work...
...Russian economy was plunging, there was a protest of a few thousand people in Vladivostok and subsequent rallies that brought out a few hundred people. But the latest rallies are larger, the reasons behind them more diverse and the calls for Putin's resignation more fervent. The Prime Minister's popularity has started to suffer. In the week after Kaliningrad, Putin's approval ratings, as measured by state-run pollster VTsIOM, fell to their lowest level in almost four years...
...Like most elections, Iraq's is in part a referendum on the incumbent, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is running on his record of bringing security and normal life back to Iraq. Originally chosen as a compromise candidate by rival Shi'ite leaders who expected him to be a weak prime minister, he surprised the country by consolidating power, reaching out beyond his Shi'ite base and embracing the cause of national unity. Still, Maliki's State of Law coalition has significant weaknesses. Though untouched by scandal himself, the Iraqi government is notoriously corrupt, and voters remain unhappy about...
...Maliki's main rival is former Prime Minster Iyad Allawi's Iraqiya coalition, which also favors a stronger central government. Allawi's coalition is billing itself as a more secular alternative to the current government, and draws more support from Sunni groups, who are going to play a more significant role in this election than in 2005, when they boycotted the political process in protest of the American occupation. (See pictures of the U.S. troops in Iraq...