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Domestic Politics

Putin: I wanna be PM… please

December 18, 2007

Assuming Dmitry Medvedev pulls of an unlikely (!) victory in the Presidential election in March, Vladimir Putin will be his Prime Minister.

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Russian cabinet resigns to make way for new PM

September 12, 2007

The entire Russian cabinet, including its Prime Minister has just resigned. A new PM hasn’t been chosen yet, but I’d be surprised if the announcement of Putin’s designated ‘heir’ isn’t imminent.
Especially when Putin gives quotes like this:
“The country is nearing parliamentary elections to be followed by presidential elections… We all need to think together about building the [...]

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Fractures within the Russian opposition?

June 28, 2007

In a must read article, Global Voices reports on some of the fractures in the broad Russian opposition.
Maria Gaidar was prevented from addressing the crowd by, allegedly, Eduard Limonov, leader of the National Bolshevik Party (NBP) and Garry Kasparov’s close ally in the Other Russia anti-government coalition.
The article goes on to translate blog entries from [...]

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Garry Kasparov being hassled again

May 19, 2007

The harrasment of Garry Kasparov continues – this week Kasparov was prevented from flying to Samara, venue for this weekend’s EU-Russia summit:

Yesterday Mr Kasparov apparently outdid himself when he was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetevo airport on suspicion of forging his own airline ticket.
It was an elaborate plot, with suspicion falling on all those travelling with [...]

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Russian opposition to pick unified Presidential candidate

April 11, 2007

A couple of stories have come out this week, saying that The Other Russia, an umbrella group of opposition parties, are meeting soon to pick a unified Presidential candidate to oppose any Kremlin-backed candidate in the March 2008.
The Guardian say they will be meeting in March.  Garry Kasparaov, however, says they’re meeting in July.
Whatever the [...]

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Nashi website blocked outside Russia

March 28, 2007

Sean reports that the Nashi website is unavailable to readers from outside of Russia:
Entering www.nashi.su into your favorite browser will turn up a “403 Forbidden” error. I’ve had limited success getting around this block using Russian proxy servers.
At the moment the Molodaia Gvardiia site is accessible and working. This brings me to believe [...]

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Gaidar poisoned by enemies of Russia

December 8, 2006

In a report that will surprise many, former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar has concluded that he was poisoned by enemies of Russia:
Most likely [...] some obvious or hidden adversaries of the Russian authorities stand behind the scenes of this event, those who are interested in further radical deterioration of relations between Russia and the [...]

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Putin cuts minimum voter turnout to 5%

December 7, 2006

Looks like Russian democracy has come on leaps and bounds while I’ve been away:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a measure canceling the 20-percent minimum voter turnout threshold for elections.
A mere 5% turnout is now sufficient to give an election democratic legitimacy in Russia.

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Rodina still banned from Moscow Duma election

December 3, 2005

The Russian Supreme Court has upheld the ban on Rodina taking part in the Moscow Duma elections. The nationalist party was barred for running a racist campaign ad.
RIA Novosti have produced a factsheet on Rodina. More background, and plenty of debate, is also available from this siberianlight.net post.
The election will be held [...]

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Communist leader Zyuganov to run for President

October 25, 2005

Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov has all but declared his intention to run for the Presidency in 2008. The Moscow Times reports a speech he gave on Monday:
“The party elected me leader, and as the leader I must carry out the party’s assignment to run for president,” Zyuganov said at a news conference where [...]

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Local elections across Russia

October 10, 2005

Sunday saw a raft of elections for local legislatures across Russia. Probably the most significant result of the weekend was for the Pensioners’ Party, who crept past United Russia to finish first in Tomsk. The St Petersburg Times, as a part of their roundup of election results, reports:
The Pensioner’s Party garnered slightly more than [...]

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Lenin’s legacy

October 6, 2005

Sean has been wondering whether it would be a good idea to bury Lenin or not, and he concludes with an interesting idea on Lenin’s importance in Russia, an idea not commonly heard in the West:
I think what Lenin stands for is changing in Russia. For better or for worse, he is becoming more like [...]

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Closed cities and the Democratic Deficit

October 6, 2005

If you thought that the demise of the Soviet Union meant the demise of closed, or secret cities, then you’d be wrong. Today, it is thought that there are up to forty closed cities (also referred as ZATO’s, or Zakrytye Administrativno-Territorial’nye Obrazovaniia) in Russia, although the Russian government will only confirm the existence of [...]

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State Duma Seat #201

October 5, 2005

Now that Mikhail Khodorkovsky is no longer eligible to stand for Russian Duma Seat #201, it looks like the race is wide open. Which means, of course, that candidates are popping out of the woodwork left, right, and centre (not to mention a few other interesting locations):
Renowned satirist Viktor Shenderovich [...]

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Putin once again muddies waters on his future

September 28, 2005

Vladimir Putin once again managed to throw Kremlin watchers into a tizz, by giving another cryptic answer to the question of what he intends to do in 2008 when his second term as President runs out.
Asked if there should be a referendum about whether he should run for a third term, Putin replied:

“I see my [...]

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