Russian Elections

[1HappyGuy 45]

With the results now emerging, do you think that politics in Russia will change much?

Russian elections: support for Vladimir Putin's party drops sharply

Parliamentary elections expected to result in Putin's United Russia party losing 77 of its 315 seats in the 450-member Duma

Vladimir Putin's United Russia party is scrambling to come to terms with an election outcome that showed its support severely dropping across the country.

With 95% of votes counted, the party stood to take 49.67% in Sunday's parliamentary election. Election monitors from opposition parties and from independent NGO Golos complained of widespread falsifications, meaning the party's true support was possibly far lower. The result registered Russians' increasing suspicions of Putin's authoritarianism, ingrained corruption and falling living standards. Solidarity, an umbrella opposition group, called a protest for 7pm local time (3pm GMT). Riot police and interior ministry troops continued to patrol parts of Moscow on Monday.

The parliamentary vote was the biggest test of public opinion following Putin's announcement earlier this year that he plans to stand for the presidency in a March 2012 election. Voters dealt United Russia, founded with the sole purpose of supporting Putin, a harsh blow. The party is expected to lose 77 seats in the Duma, dropping from 315 to 238. It failed to break through the important 50% barrier in the popular vote – a big drop from the more than 64% popular support it garnered in the country's last election in 2007. Yet it will still retain a majority in the 450-seat chamber.

United Russia was forced to deny rumours that Boris Gryzlov, party chairman and speaker of the Duma, would resign following the result.

"We are quite satisfied with the speaker who we currently have," Sergei Neverov, a top party official, told journalists on Monday. "Today we can confidently say that the United Russia party received the moral right to continue the course of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin," he said. Another party official sought to put to rest worries that the result could put into doubt Putin's victory in the presidential vote set for 4 March. "As soon as we lose our confidence, we have nothing to do," Andrei Vorobyov, chairman of the party's central executive committee, told journalists. "These 10 years [that Putin has been in power], it is very easy to lose confidence, but today it is at a very high level," he said. "Our candidate is known – it is Putin, our leader, and we will do everything in our power to ensure that our candidate wins in the first round."

Results showed that Putin's party reached a low in the region of Yaroslavl, taking just 29% of the vote. It got a boost, however, in Chechnya, which is ruled by ruthless leader Ramzan Kadyrov. With nearly 100% of voters turning out, United Russia took 99.48% of the vote, results showed. It also took more than 90% in neighbouring Dagestan. The New Region newspaper noted that "the record in central Russia was brought by patients of psychiatric clinics, who gave more than 90% of votes to United Russia".

Russians continued to register cases of falsification through the night and into Monday. News reports on state-run television appeared to show results that implied turnout in some regions was as high as 146%. Vorobyov, the United Russia official, said the party would seek to form a coalition with the other three parties that made it into the Duma – the Communists, the far-right LDPR and Just Russia. All three have long collaborated with the Kremlin. The liberal Yabloko party, which failed to reach the threshold to enter the Duma, said it would challenge the election results.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Tsar Putin's party got over 90% of the Caucus votes....lol.

Nothings going to change. Tsar Putin will be elected president, him and his cronies will keep collecting on Gazprom among other so called nationalized industries and life goes on there as usual. In the mean time roads that were suppose to be built won't be built, Tsar Putin will keep up his choke hold on Belarus and Ukraine and the West will turn the other cheek seeing how it's greedy for Russian gas.

[sea-monkey 13]

My girl voted for Putin

She says the country has prospered under him and for other reasons that I didn’t want to pay attention to. I normally switch off my brain and pretend to listen at the talk of politics.

[slim 1,514]

Who cares?

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/insiders-account-vote-rigging-putin-200602450.html

An insider's account of vote rigging for Putin

By LYNN BERRY | AP – 11 hrs ago

MOSCOW (AP) — The election official had a problem. Workers at his polling station had been stuffing ballot boxes with votes for Vladimir Putin's party all day, he says, but when the votes were counted United Russia still didn't have enough.

So he huddled with the election commission he chaired at the Moscow precinct. The decision: Putin's party would get the desired 65 percent. One member objected, but relented when the others tossed his Communist Party a few dozen votes.

The commission chairman spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job. He also said he could be punished for disobeying orders to report any contact with foreign observers or journalists to the FSB, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB.

His account closely matches reports by independent observers of rampant vote-rigging during Sunday's election, in which United Russia maintained its majority in parliament. Amateur videos posted on the Internet also appeared to show falsified ballots spilling out of boxes at polling stations.

Officially, United Russia got roughly 50 percent of the vote, a significant drop from the 64 percent the party won in the last election. But the reports of fraud indicate it may have lost even more support than those results suggest. Central Election Commission officials said they have received no reports of serious violations but would investigate any formal complaints.

This election was emerging as a watershed moment in a country where people have long seemed inured to vote manipulation, both before and after the fall of the Soviet Union. The fraud allegations have set off protests in the street and stirred broader public indignation, suggesting that the political system Putin built to solidify his control has begun to crack just three months ahead of a vote on his return to the presidency. The lackluster opposition has suddenly been energized.

Anger over the election drew more than 5,000 people Monday night, in one of the biggest anti-Putin protests in years. Police detained about 300 protesters to prevent them from marching to the Central Elections Commission near the Kremlin. New protests on Tuesday night were thwarted by police, who were out in force after having been taken by surprise the night before.

Amateur videos claiming to show the vote being rigged have spread via social media networks, including one in which the chairman of an election commission is filling out a stack of ballots. The clip attracted so much attention that city election officials were forced to acknowledge that the chairman had been caught falsifying the vote and could face charges.

The commission chairman who spoke to the AP said that representatives of Russia's four main parties got together before the election to negotiate how many votes each would get in district precincts. United Russia initially wanted 68 to 70 percent, but conceded that was too high and settled for around 65.

On voting day, the chairman said, election workers quietly slipped ballots into the boxes, as many as 50 at a time, being careful to keep the papers from rustling and attracting the attention of observers.

He said workers were trained on how to stuff ballots, each a thin sheet roughly the size of standard letter paper. He demonstrated how a stack of up to 30 or even 50 ballots could be folded in half, hidden inside a jacket and slipped into the ballot box without making any noise.

The chairman said there was a limit to the amount of ballot stuffing his commission could do. So district election officials took a few hundred of the precincts ballot, filled them out for United Russia and gave them to migrant men not on the precinct's rolls. Fake voter lists were substituted for the real ones.

During a tour of the polling station, the commission chairman pointed to a spot along the far wall where he had put chairs for observers. He said one observer was particularly zealous, never leaving the room during the 12-hour voting period, even to use the toilet.

The chairman said he got the police to evict the observer 10 minutes before the polls closed, too late for a replacement to be sent. Election monitoring groups and political parties have complained that their observers were barred from many polling places.

When the votes were counted, United Russia got only about 50 percent, even with all the extra ballots; the chairman said its real support had been about 25 percent. Turnout also was low, another setback for the Putin camp.

But when the chairman reported the 50 percent result to the district election commission, he said, he was told to make it 65 percent in the official report, which needed to be signed by all 15 members of the commission. Turnout was also to be inflated.

Most of the commission members willingly went along with the change, he said, and the one holdout was appeased when a few dozen votes were taken from smaller parties and given to the Communists.

The director of Golos, an independent election watchdog, said chairmen of election commissions at polling stations are at the center of efforts to rig the vote and routinely come under heavy pressure.

"Most of the violations we see happen at the local level," Liliya Shibanova said.

Golos says many violations involved busing people with absentee ballots to multiple polling stations so they can vote, a system called "cruise" or "carousel" voting.

Putin, who served as president from 2000 to 2008 and then moved into the prime minister's office because of presidential term limits, is hoping to return to the presidency after the March election. He had been counting on a strong show of popular support for United Russia in the parliamentary election to add legitimacy to his campaign.

He has appeared shaken by the election results and by the overall lack of enthusiasm over his decision to reclaim the presidency from Dmitry Medvedev.

Many Russians are growing weary of his leadership, and of the pervasive corruption and great social inequality it has fostered.

Still, there is little doubt that Putin will win the presidential election. He remains more popular than his party and will likely face only tepid opposition, given his control over who is allowed to run.

Putin seems to realize that he needs to respond to the discontent, but gave no sign Tuesday that he knows how.

"As for the question of what exactly is worrying people and why they don't vote for United Russia but vote for other parties, of course we need to think about this," he said. "We need to analyze these problems and formulate further suggestions on solving them."

[Pinenut 1]

Channel 1 in Russia isn't reporting any of this of course. It is kind of sickening to watch them showing the Nashi rally of support for the "clean elections" and tons of experts, including international, declaring that everything was done properly. Everyone on vkontakte (russian facebook) and live journal (the most popular blog site here) are sharing videos and photos of the ridiculousness.

The protests in Moscow are just a start... lots more are planned around the country for this weekend. My husband wanted to go to the protest planned in our city for Saturday... but we can't get arrested before our visa interview. Not that I think these protests are going to change much... I've heard a lot of Russians express the opinion that this "peaceful measures" thing just doesn't work for Russia.

[SMR 368]

It seems the most likely outcome is that nothing will happen. Putin and ЕР will do lip service to some liberalization movements, some of which may have some substance but most of which will not really be effectively implemented anyways. People who are paying attention will continue to get more pissed. Something will eventually happen but not now.

A second possible outcome would be a crackdown. Putin has threatened to fire all governors of regions where ЕР didn't get enough votes. That's definitely a problem. This will lead to something happening sooner in my opinion, mainly because the displaced regional governors, while somewhat neutered, will still have power which will contribute to destabilization.

Third, someone may emerge as an actual opposition candidate in the elections and he will be able to pressure ЕР to actually give him a fair shake. I see this as highly unlikely but I think it's the only option that doesn't lead to bloodshed eventually.

Fourth, Revolution in the immediate future. I see this as unlikely since most of the potential leaders are in jail. You can't deny the effectiveness of throwing the ring leaders in jail for a couple weeks on petty charges. Things get defused and people go on with their lives. With Nemtsov, Yashin, and Navalny already in jail, there aren't a lot of leaders left.

In short, I think Prokhorov was right when he said that the current situation is unstable and will unravel within the next five years. Things will get either more or less authoritarian.

[ONA 133]

Channel 1 in Russia isn't reporting any of this of course. It is kind of sickening to watch them showing the Nashi rally of support for the "clean elections" and tons of experts, including international, declaring that everything was done properly. Everyone on vkontakte (russian facebook) and live journal (the most popular blog site here) are sharing videos and photos of the ridiculousness.

Yeah, about those "Nashi rallies". For those, who can read Russian...

This is from vkontakte website:

Дорогие Друзья!

Сегодня, 6 декабря, были занятия на военной кафедре..С утра на построении нам объявили: "Сегодня занятия у нас до обеда - 2 пары, после к 14:00 мы все должны прибыть на Пушкинскую площадь, где будет проходить НЕ политический митинг, посвященный 70ти летию со дня Битвы под Москвой во время ВОВ.."

Мы приехали..Встретили там таких же студентов, кадетов, учащихся колледжей и ВУЗов, и большое кол-во "женщин" представляющих видимо управы, собесы и т.д...нас построили как в школе по 3 человека и повели к площади..Мы прошли через "арки" - металлоискатели, показали свои вещи сотрудникам полиции и оказались на митинге...

..И даже не знаю, к удивлению или еще к чему...Конечно же он был посвящен "ПОБЕДЕ ЕДРОССОВ"!!..дальше в комментариях просто нет нужды..скажу одно: Через пару часов в новостях оповестили, что: "10 тысяч московской молодежи собрались на Пушкинской площади для поддержки и празднования победы ЕР на выборах 2011"....

Знаю написал много, не все прочтут, ну просто накипело..

awesome...

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Someones feeling insecure in his own county these days....

http://news.yahoo.com/putin-accuses-clinton-encouraging-protesters-093312730.html

Putin accuses Clinton of encouraging protesters

AP – 1 hr 49 mins ago

MOSCOW (AP) — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin blasted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday for encouraging and supporting the election protesters and warned of a wider Russian crackdown on unrest.

By describing Russia's parliamentary election as rigged, Putin said Clinton "gave a signal" to his opponents.

"They heard this signal and with the support of the U.S. State Department began their active work," Putin said in televised remarks.

Russian protesters have taken to the streets in Moscow and St. Petersburg for three straight nights despite heavy police presence, outraged over observers' reports of widespread ballot box stuffing and manipulations of the vote count in Sunday's parliamentary election. The demonstrations have been some of the biggest and most sustained protests Russia has seen in years, and police have detained hundreds of protesters.

Putin's United Russia party barely held onto its majority in parliament, with official results giving it about 50 percent of the vote, down from 64 percent four years ago. But the fraud allegations indicate that support for United Russia was even lower as Russians are growing weary of Putin and his party after nearly 12 years in office.

Putin warned that Russian authorities might take an even harder line.

"We need to think about strengthening the law and holding more responsible those who carry out the task of a foreign government to influence our internal political process," he said.

Moscow has already put out 50,000 police and troops on the streets, backed by water cannon.

Russia's only independent election monitoring group, which is supported by grants from the United States and European governments, has come under heavy official pressure in recent weeks, with their website hit by hackers.

Opposition groups have called for a mass protest near the Kremlin on Saturday. More than 17,000 people have signed up to a Facebook page on it.

[AmyWrites 593]

My SO voted for the Commie Party (altho he is not), only to not vote for United Russia. BUT he also prefers Putin as President... since he thinks anyone else will be worse and hey at least the country prospered under Putin (true). We've had the same arguments about countries with dictators and he says staying with the dictator is better because the next one will be worse.

He says most protesters are just pissed off young people, yet he will go to the protests.

Sometimes (okay, many times) I don't understand Russians.

[SMR 368]

This account is of an election observer who states that the vote totals were simply changed after being tallied. There's quite a bit of detail and it's an interesting read. You can really feel his frustration. Edited December 8, 2011 by SMR

[1HappyGuy 45]

I guess I'm not too surprised that most think there will be no change. I do find it funny that Putin actually wanted to blame some of the protesters on Hillary Clinton. It's like he believes no one would complain about him in Russia unless they were put up to it. What an ego.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Third world politics at it's finest.

http://news.yahoo.com/obscene-medvedev-account-tweet-embarrasses-kremlin-145229016.html

Obscene Medvedev account tweet embarrasses Kremlin

AP – 7 hrs ago

MOSCOW (AP) — President Dmitry Medvedev's affection for going online has turned off-color after an obscene characterization of a prominent opposition figure appeared on his Twitter account.

Medvedev's tweets are usually bland, such as congratulating victorious sports teams. So the post describing popular opposition figure Alexei Navalny as a sheep engaging in an unprintable and unlikely sexual act sparked huge attention.

A Kremlin statement says the message, a retweet of a posting by United Russia party ideologue and former parliament member Konstantin Rykov, was done by an unnamed member of the president's technical staff. It added "the guilty will be punished."

The post late Tuesday came on the second straight day of large demonstrations in Moscow and other cities by protesters over the vote fraud seen in Russia's parliamentary election Sunday.

The post does not mention Navalny by name, but clearly refers to him, denouncing the phrase the "party of crooks and thieves" that Navalny popularized on his blog to characterize United Russia, the country's dominant party.

United Russia, led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, won a slim majority of parliamentary seats in the election, far fewer than the powerful two-thirds majority it held in the previous State Duma. Russian and international observers say fraud and vote-count irregularities were widespread, and protesters say the fraud substantially inflated United Russia's count.

Navalny was arrested Monday on the first night of protests in Moscow and sentenced to 15 days in jail.

Rykov's Twitter account sarcastically includes a link to a video of Navalny, repeating the sheep characterization at the Moscow protest. The retweet has been removed from Medvedev's account.

Medvedev made a point soon after becoming president in 2008 of showing himself to be technologically astute, establishing both a Twitter account and a video blog. Despite his attempts to look modern, Medvedev is viewed by many Russians as earnest but largely ineffectual.

[sea-monkey 13]

My SO voted for the Commie Party

I wonder if U.S. officials can deny petitions due to the person being a commie or at least supporting them.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

I wonder if U.S. officials can deny petitions due to the person being a commie or at least supporting them.

They would have to know about it first. Less they know the better.