Word: putin
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There was little surprise in the results of Russia's parliamentary election Sunday, with Vladimir Putin's party appearing to have won two-thirds of the vote. Given the extensive use of state resources to tilt the political playing field entirely in the favor of the ruling party, the outcome was all but predetermined. But the more telling fact may be that Putin's managed election victory has caused so little public discontent outside of small liberal enclaves of the middle class and die-hard supporters of the Communist Party. That lack of an outcry is just further proof that...
...There was nothing subtle about official attempts to shape the election result. Opposition parties and leaders were harassed, the electronic media relentlessly flattered Putin's achievements, and state employees were pressured to turn out and vote for his United Russia party. In Chechnya, the breakaway province bombed and bludgeoned into quiescence by Putin since taking office in 2000, some 99.4% of the vote went to his party...
...narrower, few doubt that United Russia would easily have won even if the election had been free and fair. And it's not simply because of the party's policies - indeed, the centerpiece of the party's election platform, as much of its campaign media made clear, was Putin himself...
...were a U.S. President, Putin would be a lame duck at this stage. His second term of office expires four months from now, and the constitution prohibits him from seeking a third consecutive term. Still, nobody doubts that Russia's immediate political future will be decided primarily by the former KGB man now in the Kremlin. Some supporters have urged him to find a legal loophole to allow himself another term; others hope that, as the leading candidate of United Russia in Sunday's poll, he simply moves into the legislature in the job of Prime Minister, and inverts...
...explanation for Putin's popularity may be found in certain similarities to the man often credited with helping to bring down the Soviet Union. It's not that the former KGB man has any policy preferences or even a political style in common with Ronald Reagan, the great icon of contemporary American conservatism. But in the sense that he has made Russians feel good once again about their country, his appeal is Reaganesque...