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Putin's Soviet-style "democracy"

So much for the faith George Bush expressed about Vladimir Putin, the Russian President.

Putin is cracking down hard, Soviet-style, as he seeks to consolidate his position in the Russian political firmament. Bear in mind that Putin's background is that of KGB Chief. Lessons learned.......

Katrina Vanden Heuvel writing in The Nation, catalogues Putin's crackdown on the press and opposition:

"With Russia's parliamentary elections scheduled for December 2 and the pro-Kremlin United Russia party expected to win an overwhelming majority in the voting, President Vladimir Putin has intensified attacks on his opponents--most recently, accusing them of being in the pocket of Western governments. Most of the country's state-run media have fallen in line.

Attacks on opposition forces are not confined to verbal demonization. On Wednesday, Farid Babayev--the head of the Yabloko party ticket in Dagestan was shot at the entrance of his apartment building. Babayev, a human rights activist and fierce critic of the United Russia party and local authorities, died on Saturday. That same day, Garry Kasparov, one of the leaders of the opposition coalition Other Russia, was arrested in Moscow and sentenced to five days in jail for leading an unsanctioned street march on Russia's Central Election Commission. (City officials had given the coalition permission to hold a rally but not a march.)

The Kremlin's tightening grip on the media, especially national and local television, and authorities' harassment of opposition parties, led Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky to draw a parallel between Putin's Russia and Soviet Russia. "Russia stands on the threshold of the restoration of Soviet-style single-party rule."

Comments

Caroline said…
The blog is informative, but this is what we know from the press. What is the author's attitude and opinions?

I personally see the return to the Soviet era with the legalization of corruption and shameless use of chauvinistic tendencies of the russian population by the corrupted authorities in view to keep them busy fighting against the foreign (western) influences and to dream of the "russian hegemony" rather than to look for the reasons of their poor existence. It reminds me of the Arab countries endoctrined by the islam. In Russia the sweent dream of the "Great Russia" makes simple-minded people forget their own insignificance. Such a situation brings benefits only to the elite of thieves and wheeler-dealers.

Putin impersonates the cruel and ruthless dictatorship and the mafia-style terror.

Pity for poor Russia!
November 30, 2007 6:55 pm
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