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TBF

(31,919 posts)
Sun Mar 4, 2012, 06:38 PM Mar 2012

‘Surprise’, it’s Putin

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/6249046.bin

Fisher: ‘Surprise’, it’s Putin, but opponents vow campaign of protests

Postmedia News March 4, 2012 12:27 PM

<snip>

But Sunday’s balloting appeared to confirm deep political fissures in the country that could spell grave trouble for the former president, current prime minister and future president.

Hundreds of thousands of well-educated middle class Muscovites as well as many residents of St. Petersburg strongly repudiated Putin on Sunday while an even larger majority of Russians living in the Urals, Siberia and the Caucasus have handed the former KGB agent who since 2000 has led Russia as president and prime minister another six years in power.

Pointing to the heaviest police presence in many years on the streets of Moscow on Sunday, as well as alleged irregularities at many polls, increasingly confident opponents of Putin condemned Sunday’s ballot as a farce. They vowed to keep up the pressure on Putin beginning on Monday by launching the first of what they claim will be many protests along the main thoroughfare leading to Red Square. The nationalist anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny said he was organizing an unauthorized march on the Kremlin on Monday. To try to force change, he also advocated a permanent tent presence of protesters similar to those of the Occupy movement in Europe and North America.

Backers of Putin have promised counter-demonstrations. But if recent experience is anything to go on, compared to opposition gatherings Putin’s rallies have largely been devoid of passion and have the look and the feel of staged events.

Competing demonstrations set up the potential for conflict. That possibility was underscored by the presence Sunday of several dozen buses and trucks loaded with police parked on just one street in the centre of Moscow. Similar groups of security forces were reported to be waiting in several other nearby places.

One of the problems for the opposition is that while it is unified in its opposition to Putin, it agrees on little else. Another is that whatever voting irregularities there may have been, Putin clearly continues to have huge backing outside Moscow, so the election is an expression of the democratic will of the people.

Among Putin’s challenges is that the capital’s political and cultural elite have it in for him. These voters have long had a disproportionate say in the running of Russia and the Soviet Union. They also live where most of the country’s immense wealth is concentrated.

Sunday’s ballot presents a number of ironies. Muscovites have unquestionably benefited the most from Russia’s oil and gas-soaked economy during Putin’s tenure, yet they are the ones who have loudly condemned the president-elect and his inner circle for grabbing a large share of the country’s economy for themselves and for not having completed meaningful economic and legal reforms to prevent what they have not been shy about calling thievery and banditism.

On the other hand, the hinterlands, which produce all of Russia’s energy wealth, have only received a tiny share of the lucre generated by almost record high prices for oil and gas. Yet voters in these distant regions still clearly admire and respect Putin...

Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/Fisher+Surprise+Putin+opponents+campaign+protests/6249071/story.html#ixzz1oBrgXtWz







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‘Surprise’, it’s Putin (Original Post) TBF Mar 2012 OP
Why doesn't Putin just get it over with and declare himself Tsar already? white_wolf Mar 2012 #1
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