The American Left can only dream.
Kremlin accused of fixing presidential poll- State workers ordered to vote for Putin's protege
- Ballot boxes 'to be stuffed' after polls close tomorrow
The Kremlin is planning to falsify the results of tomorrow's presidential election by compelling millions of public-sector workers to vote and by fraudulently boosting the official turnout, the Guardian has been told by independent sources.
Governors, regional officials and even headteachers have been instructed to deliver a landslide majority for Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's first deputy prime minister, whom President Vladimir Putin has endorsed as his successor.
Officials have been told they need to secure a 68-70% turnout in this weekend's poll, with about 72% voting for Medvedev. Independent analysts believe the real turnout will be much lower, with 25-50% of the electorate taking part.
The Kremlin is planning to bridge the gap through widespread fraud, diplomats and other independent sources have told the Guardian. Local election officials are preparing to stuff ballot boxes once polls have closed, they believe, with regional officials giving inflated tallies to Russia's central election commission.
Additionally, public-sector workers including teachers, students and doctors have been told to vote tomorrow or risk serious consequences. Parents have even been warned that if they fail to turn up their children might suffer at school.
Marina Dashenkova, of the Golos independent poll monitoring organisation, said complaints to its hotline were following a similar pattern to those made during the parliamentary poll in December. Forced use of absentee ballots, pressure on state workers and the illegal use of state resources to promote Medvedev were the most common complaints, she said.
Renat Suleymanov, secretary of the Communist party in Novosibirsk region, said state workers in schools, libraries, nurseries and doctors' clinics as well as employees of private companies were "coming under intense pressure" to vote in tightly controlled conditions at their place of work using absentee ballots.
In Vladivostok, Vladimir Bespalov, a member of the local parliament, said he had acquired a document showing that bureaucrats were told to ensure a 65% turnout and a vote of more than 65% for Medvedev. The document laid out precise figures for certain districts, he said, with some expected to deliver 88% for the Kremlin candidate. "Clearly, we are talking about instructions to bureaucrats who are expected to deliver a victory for Medvedev that corresponds to pre-planned results," he said. "According to my information, if these figures are not reached then the people responsible can expect punishment right up to being sacked."
In Niznhny Novgorod, there were reports of students being told to vote for Medvedev or face being thrown out of dormitories. Vladimir Primachyok, a campaign official with presidential candidate and Communist veteran Gennady Zyuganov, the chief rival to Medvedev, claimed students in Irkutsk were being forced to vote under the supervision of college officials. "All of this is a blatant violation of electoral laws," he said.
The purpose of the falsification is to boost the legitimacy of Medvedev, 42, who takes over from Putin in May. Analysts concede that Medvedev would have won the election anyway, but on a much smaller turnout.
"In some places they will put in extra ballots. In other places election officials will give data that just doesn't exist," Mikhail Delyagin, an economist and the director of Moscow's Institute of Globalisation Problems, told the Guardian.
"Everybody knows what to do," said the political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky. "The technology has been proved over the past four years. Once the polls close unused ballot papers are taken, filled in for Medvedev of course, and thrown into the box. The boxes are then stamped, and reopened a second later. Then they start to count."
Asked why the Kremlin elite felt the need to fix the election, Belkovsky said: "They can't be Saddam Hussein or the Chinese leadership. The idea is to gain legitimacy in the west."
One western diplomat said that the administration was involved in a complicated "numbers game" designed to ensure that Medvedev won a clear first round victory in Sunday's vote, but didn't exceed the 71.3% won by Putin in 2004. There would be little "systematic overt rigging" during voting, the diplomat said. Instead the figures would be "massaged" during the accounting and tabulation process, he suggested. "In a country of this size how do you monitor that?" he asked.
The Kremlin has shrugged off accusations that it manipulated last December's poll - despite the fact that in several areas, including Chechnya and other parts of the North Caucasus, 99% of the population "voted" for Putin's United Russia party. The turnout in Chechnya was 99.6%. Putin said the result was "perfectly objective".
This week the leading Soviet dissident Sergei Kovalev wrote an open letter to Putin, describing Russia's elections as nothing more than a "tasteless farce being played out by untalented directors on the entire boundless Russian stage". "Not even Stalin could have dreamed of the Chechen record," he added.
Medvedev is competing against Zyuganov, ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and Andrey Bogdanov, a Kremlin-supporting independent. The Kremlin prevented Mikhail Kasyanov, the only genuinely democratic challenger, from taking part.
The Communists have repeatedly complained of overwhelming media bias in the run-up to the poll. State TV has lavishly covered Medvedev's daily activities and his tour of Russia's far east.
In a televised address yesterday Putin urged Russians to vote. "The voice of each one of you will be important," he said, adding that they needed to turn out so that the next president could be "effective and confident".
'I want to vote the way I want'
Schoolteacher, Novosibirsk
"They got us teachers together in the school a couple of weeks ago and told us to take absentee ballots and vote at work. They told us election day will be a working day. A few young teachers asked, 'What about freedom of expression?' They were told, 'If you want freedom, go and look for work in a different place.'
"I have a colleague who works in a different school in the city and she says the same thing happened to them. She took an absentee ballot and showed it to her boss and they ticked her off the list.
"They want people to vote at work because it will be easier for them to control the process there. Since the meeting in our school they have constantly been coming to us and asking if we have taken our absentee ballots. I refused to take one. I'm going to vote in the place where I live. I want to vote the way I want and not how somebody tells me.
"I've heard that the same thing is going on in kindergartens all across the city. They're being told to take absentee ballots and vote in a particular place, all together.
"If they found out I had been talking to you they would sack me."
The Kooky Kos Kiddyz were unavailable for comment.
Via The Guardian
When discussing the G8 and the Soviet Union today's Russia during an interview six months ago, Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves offered that, ...if you're not a member of the G8, it's not difficult to call for anyone to be thrown out. But I certainly wouldn't call it the organization of industrialized democracies anymore.
Interviewer: What would you call it?
President Ilves: Seven industrial democracies and one country brought in for reasons that have lost their relevance.
Putin to be PM in future Russia government
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday he was ready to become prime minister if his close ally Dmitry Medvedev succeeds him, giving Putin a way to keep a grip on power after he leaves the Kremlin.
A 42-year-old lawyer with no political base of his own, Medvedev is virtually certain to win next March's presidential election since most Russians will vote for whoever the highly popular Putin endorses.
"If Russian citizens express their confidence in Dmitry Medvedev and elect him as the country's president, I will be ready to head the government," Putin told a congress of his United Russia party held near Moscow's Red Square.
"(We) shouldn't be ashamed or afraid of transferring the key powers of the country, the destiny of Russia to the hands of such a man," Putin added in his speech.
You'll get no argument from the Koslings, Putie. They know democracy when they see it.Medvedev, 42, was later adopted by the congress as United Russia's presidential candidate. Delegates voted 478-1 in a sober, Soviet-style ceremony held without debate.
Is there any other way???In his brief acceptance speech, Medvedev listed priorities such as strengthening Russia's position in the world, preserving the Russian nation, looking after the young and the old.
"All this is in Vladimir Putin's strategy. I will be guided by this strategy, if I am elected president," Medvedev said.
"But carrying out an idea can only be successful with the participation of its author. I have no doubt that in the future Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) will use all his resources, all his influence in Russia and abroad for the benefit of Russia."
[....]
Putin praised Medvedev as a man whose "main principles in life are the interests of its government and its citizens."
And pleasing his master.He also announced a big pay rise of 14 percent for public sector workers, which will come into effect on February 1, just over a month before the election. The military will get 18 percent.
Of course, the pay increases have nothing to do with buying loyalty and votes for Putie's weak sister.In a further sign of Putin's intention to keep a grip on power next year, Russian media reported that Putin could send the Kremlin chief of staff to run Medvedev's election campaign.
[....]
Read it all at Reuters
Too busy shilling for the Palis, the administration's 'Russian expert' was unavailable for comment.
Also at A Tangled Web
UPDATE: Although speculation about Putie's future began last June, Vladimir Paranoid's announcement about becoming prime minister after Medvedev's 'elected' in March, experts were surprised.
Experts, schmexperts.
Chess grandmaster and opposition leader Garry Kasparov (C) pushes through the crowd before being detained by the police during an opposition rally in central Moscow November 24, 2007.
Russian police round up anti-Putin protesters
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Russian riot police beat opposition activists on Sunday and detained nearly 200 people at protest rallies against President Vladimir Putin a week before the country's parliamentary election.
Riot police in St Petersburg, Russia's second city and Putin's home town, detained Boris Nemtsov and Nikita Belykh, leaders of the Union of Right Forces (SPS) party who are both running in the December 2 election. They were later released.
The protests came a day after police detained opposition leader and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov in Moscow -- a move the United States condemned on Sunday as part of "aggressive tactics" by authorities.
"We are troubled that Garry Kasparov and other leaders of the opposition have been arrested and detained," said White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
Kasparov, leader of the Other Russia group, was among 60 detained in the 3,000-strong Moscow march, activists said.
In St Petersburg, this correspondent saw riot police beating activists with batons and their fists before forcing them into police buses.
Dozens more were detained outside the Winter Palace, the residence of the Tsars, and at another rally in the city centre.
"They have forbidden us from discussing Putin," Nemtsov told the crowd. "But we have come here today to ask Mr Putin and the authorities why is there so much corruption in the country?"
There's much more
Kooky Kult Kommandante Markos was unavailable for comment.
According to the Soviet Russian constitution, president Vladimir Paranoid is limited to two consecutive terms and must step down following elections next year. However, Putie has not ruled out running again in 2012."Theoretically it's possible. The constitution does not forbid it. But it's very far away, I haven't even thought about this."
I'll believe that right after I'm named high rabbi of Mecca and Medina.Amid repeated calls by politicians for Putin to remain in power after 2008, the president has stressed that he opposes changing the constitution to allow him to stay on. But he has also suggested he will choose a favored successor and hinted that he may keep a hand in running the country after he steps down.
So, who would be the ideal puppet? And wouldn't object to Putie keeping his hand in the cookie jar?Rumor has it that the incumbent president's wife could become a leader of the Spravedlivaya Rossia party (Fair or Just Russia, also translated as Russia of Justice; formed in October 2006 as a merger of Rodina, the Russian Party of Life and the Russian Pensioners' Party). Two facts are usually cited in this context, among others... The party was recently joined by the president's cousin, Igor Putin, and the year 2007 was declared a Year of the Russian Language, which gives Lyudmila Alexandrovna [Putin], who has long been overseeing the project, an excellent road-show opportunity, as well as the much needed exposure.
As they say, stay tuned.
During an interview in Prague with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves discussed the problems with the Soviets Russia and Vladimir Paranoid. RFE/RL: Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday gave an interview to "Corriere della Sera," an Italian newspaper, in which he was asked his reaction to the missile-defense system that the United States is seeking to install here and in Poland. And, of course, he said that Russia would react. And they asked him, "Does that mean you'll be pointing missiles at European cities?" And he said, "Yes, naturally." Given those kinds of comments and some of the comments and actions that have happened in Estonia, how do you react to that?
Ilves: I gave a long talk on that last night. Briefly, democracies don't go to war with each other. Democracies don't make warlike threats against each other. Either that truism is false or the notion of a G8 of the industrialized democracies getting together is based on a false premise. I mean, democracies don't behave like that. [It's] one or the other. Either we chuck out the premise, or we have to rethink what the G8 stands for. Which is not to mean that anyone's going to throw the Russians out of the G8.
RFE/RL: Some people are calling for that.
Ilves: That's true, but...if you're not a member of the G8, it's not difficult to call for anyone to be thrown out. But I certainly wouldn't call it the organization of industrialized democracies anymore.
RFE/RL: What would you call it?
Ilves: Seven industrial democracies and one country brought in for reasons that have lost their relevance.
Chalk up another one for New Europe.
Read the entire interview. You won't be disappointed.
