Political earthquake in Russia as liberals ousted from Duma

[Guaranteed]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1503&e=1&u=/afp/russia_vote_liberals

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia woke up to a new political landscape after liberal parties were all but shut out of the nation's parliament for the first time in the post-Soviet era.


"The democrats no longer exist," said Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a respected researcher who is a specialist on Russia's political system.


"The democratic movement has been enfeebled, decapitated, destroyed," she said.


With 91 percent of Sunday's vote counted, both of the nation's top liberal parties, Union of Right Forces (SPS) and Yabloko, failed to scrape by the crucial five-percent barrier needed to win seats by proportional representation in the State Duma.


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On edit: Brutal article. It's pretty evil, what's going on over there. Worth the short read at Yahoo.

[Capt_Nemo]

1. "Russian Democrats" as western media calls them

are in reality the oligarchs' stooges.
They are the russian "Enronizers".
They ruined their country in the 90's and now are getting their
well deserved payback.
Good riddance!!!

[alexwcovington]

2. Putin's no better

Turning the nation back into a police state... it's sickening.

[Capt_Nemo]

3. Sorry, but he is not a bit more authoritarian than Yeltsin

Who run even more unfair electoral campaigns and even assaulted with
tanks a non-compliant parliament.
But Yeltsin was West's own SOB doing their bidding in "downsizing"
Russia, while western media cheered him on... talk of a double standard... :eyes:

Now Russia is back again on the path of growth and Yeltsin's era and
his cronies are well and truly finished, that's what's pissing off
western establishments and their lackeys in the media... they should
get over it... :evilgrin:

[Tinoire]

13. Totally with you on that one- those are the Soros Democrats

that would sell their country and country-men down the river for a few dollars. Good riddance to them! And good riddance to all the US groups such as the nefarious "National Endowment for Democracy" that are out there with the sole purpose of toppling other governments, spreading capitalism, and plundering other countries.

[ender]

14. yeh - the old KGB controlled USSR was much better.

this is really not good - putins gonna reform the ussr, complete with police state.

[mikehiggins]

4. Liberal?

You have to wonder what the definition used is.

For those who may have forgotten, Russia is not the United States. They have their own history, etc., and their commitment to "liberal" values is new and dubious. However, in terms of "democracy" and "law" the facts are that the two self-identified "liberal" parties failed to get enough votes to win seats in the legislative body.

Shall we insist they be seated anyway?

How many Green congresscritters are there in Washington?

More telling is the fact that the Communists have failed to regain control. That definately proves that Putin is evil and repressive.

There is no doubt that he is an authoritative son-of-a-bitch, but this was not an old-style USSR election. The people had the chance to speak their minds in secrecy, and Putin won. That's what elections are all about.

Now, if the Russian courts intervened and appointed him President I could see where people might be disgruntled.

Oh, wait. That was us, wasn't it?

[TheLastMohican]

5. The names of those parties shouldn't fool you

In no way they are liberal or have anything to do with liberal society and social justice.
SPS (The Union of Right forces) is the representation of modern day fascism lead by the national power-grid knife-switch <b>Anatoli Chubais</b> who was advocating cutting off electicity in homes and entire regions just to make people pay the ever increasing sums of money for the electicity. He and his cronies damaged the industry and the whole infrastructure of several regions of Russia by constantly harrassing them with power outages. The guy believes in pure capitalism where only the fittest survive and the rest go to kingdom come. The most barbaric and cruel act was cutting electric supply to maternity wards where women were giving birth to children resulting in many infant deaths.
<b>Boris Nemtsov</b> another prominent financial speculator who set up many fraudulent financial schemes, some of them led to Russia's default on its T-bills in 1998 and the collapse of the entire Russian economy.
<b>Irina Khakamada</b> another witch married in the past to a Japanese businessman hence the name. Also orchestrated much of the chaos and financial instability in Russia in the 90's
Their downfall is a well deserved payback which is always a bitch. Russian people have nothing but hate towards these individuals and the values which their party represents. So calling them liberals would be so off the mark.
AS for Yabloko, they are mild in comparison to SPS, but also failed to draw much public support due to the vague nature of their programs and inability to directly address the hot issues such as crime, unemployment, drugs etc.
That's my 2 cents on the subject from the neighboring country.

[RPG-7]

10. you have to use brackets for HTML here

:)

[TheLastMohican]

12. Thanks, I figured that out

:)

[kainah]

19. Thanks for the informed posts, TheLastMohican

I was looking for some enlightment on this subject from DU and I appreciate you taking the time to supply it. Thanks!

[Guaranteed]

6. Destroying a party entirely never seemed very

"democratic" to me.

I really have no clue what the significance of these parties are in Russia. But just look at the quotes. I mean, damn.

On edit: From what I hear it's basically just rival gangs fighting for power. You think these people have real political principles that they're fighting for?

[tom_paine]

21. Why is the fact that the Commies didn't regain control proof of Putin's Ev

il?

I don't get that. Not that Putin's not a bit evil or more than a bit...he's Bunnypants* soulmate that's fer sure...but Putin, like Bush*, must repackage old evil in a new wrapper so as to calm the Subjects.

Of course, since he's so vile and his nation so often tyrannized throughout it's history, he's beating Bush* to the bottom even though Bush* got a headstart.

[Guaranteed]

7. Some more interesting information

here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=260238

Of course, who the hell knows what information to trust when it's coming from halfway across the world. Things are bad enough just finding out what's going on in the US.

[TheLastMohican]

8. You are right. I bet it is very hard to figure things out

living on the other side of the pond. Let's just say that SPS was as pro-US current administration as one can get. Whether you would support them or not is left open to you. But Russian people (and many of them are pensioneers, students, single mothers and low paid workers) are not fit into the equation set by this party.
Their motto is simple: "If you can't pay for this you may rot, we don't care, less mouths to feed". I don't think such party would draw much support anywhere.

[RPG-7]

9. "liberal" means republican in Russian

I think without a doubt there was fraud going on. The results in Chechnya were laughable, they produced turnouts at rates twice the norm anywhere else in a land populated by hardcore seperatists who wouldn't vote in a Russian election if you paid them.

However, seeing the "liberals" go down in flames isn't a bad thing and I doubt that they would have done much better if there wasn't ballot rigging.

[TheLastMohican]

11. Chechnya was definetely rigged

there were soldiers from permanent garrisons voting there which they didn't have any right to do, because they don't live there.

As for the rest of Russia, such a landslide victory shows that people are just fed up with so-called "liberals", their financial speculations and constant plundering of russian wealth and assets. You should've seen the arrogant face of SPS leader Chubais yesterday, the guy thinks he is some kind of messiah unrecognized in the motherland. ;)

[PaDUer]

16. Not surprised..

don't forget the * went to visit there.

[Emboldened Chimp]

15. Sure hope Pooty-Poot isn't giving Smirk any ideas

A sign of things to come...?

[David__77]

17. Putin is no democrat by any means, however...

I don't care about those neo-liberal/neo-conservative forces that have the destruction of their nation on their head. It's a world tragedy that Russia has been destroyed by the oligarchy there.

[JoFerret]

18. There is something bad

going down here. Managed democracy it is called. Follow the money. Follow Bush.

[tom_paine]

20. As I projected: Totalitarianism is reasserting itself again, lead by Bush

I hate to be so Amerocentric, but it is true in many ways that as we go, so goes a significant porton of the world.

During the Prosperity of Clinton, during the Last Days of the Old American Republic, democracy spread, helped along by Jimmy Carter and the Center for Democracy (I think thats it's was called), bringing clean (relatively) voting in Third World nations.

Now, with everything here in reverse, the Busheviks turning the clock back on Liberty, reducing our voting systems and our judicial system (which has in fact provided some astonishing resistance to Bushevik packing, must give it credit for the moment), building very swiftly a secret police force and quickly reducing the Middle Class and the Socioeconomic power of the bottom 80%. So now the rest of the world is following. "Trickle-down" Totalitarianism.

The true question is, for the Russians as well as we here in Imperial Amerika, just WHO's votes were counted there.

Did the people themselves, sign their own death warrant, as they did here, and approve with their votes the dismemberment of fledgling Liberty, or was it a Rove-Bushevik-Bolvsevik production, with a combination of brutally clever propaganda and tampering.

We'll never know, I fear.