Siberian Elections Show Russia Becoming A One-Party State

The New York Times:

NOVOSIBIRSK, Russia -- On the eve of regional elections, an opposition candidate named Olga V. Safronova arrived at a school for a campaign finale. She planned a rousing speech with a refrain that Russia had been seized by a dictatorial ruling party.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

Comments

[Spencaa]

09:31 AM on 12/14/2010

I can't believe some people here think the American system is worse than the Russian one...yeah the American system is pretty terrible, but at least police aren't raiding Democratic head quarters and arresting supporters. At least American journalists and human rights workers aren't being gunned down on the street.

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

04:30 PM on 12/13/2010

A giant pile of savages in Europe. Wouldn't trust a Russian as far as I could throw one....maybe less.

[Schweik]

07:03 PM on 12/13/2010

Flagged.
HP Posting guidelines: "we do not allow h a t e speech, nor do we allow speech that advocates or supports hatred..."
We do not allow racism... or other intolerance."

It about time, amigo, you took notice of these guidelines.

To paraphrase the famous Latin saying :Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Who will moderate the moderators?

[Schweik]

07:05 PM on 12/13/2010

Shameful and infantile comment, Concerned.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[halfpricefaustian]

04:03 PM on 12/13/2010

Living in Texas, I know exactly how the Russians feel.

[Schweik]

09:37 PM on 12/13/2010

No, you don't

[Spencaa]

09:29 AM on 12/14/2010

Dude....no, you don't.

[Steamboater]

02:44 PM on 12/13/2010

Becoming a one party state? Russia has been a one part state since Putin put his foot on free elections with a crackdown on the free press and for all intents and purposes a dictatorship. The hallmark of a real democracy is a free press. One journalist after another questioning Putin on his policies and brutal way of depressing any oppostion has been murdered. Putin's surrogates are thugs and no different than the Soviets when they ruled with similar tactics to stop anyone from putting their ‘governing’to the fire.
 
 
 
In 1787 grand decpetion began that hasn’t abated even today in Russia
Russian Minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkim decided to pull a fast one on Empress Catherine the Great when she toured lands annexed to Russia to show her these lands had value as well as because he was personally responsible for these lands. So as Catherine toured the areas, she was delighted to see how beautiful they were. In fact Potemkin had built several fake and prosperous looking settlements that were nothing but Hollywood sets with false fronts with fires burning in just the right places at night so from a distance Catherine wouldn’t notice everything was faked. She fell for it hook, line and Stolie and that’s how the term Potemkin Village for fraud came into being. Russia today is no different than Russia yesterday and is a Potemkin Village.

[Schweik]

03:54 PM on 12/13/2010

Not Potemkin village, but Putinkin village.

Ok, but seriously, every since Mongol invasion separated the Eastern Slavs, Russians has followed its own own path. And yes, this path includes penchant for strong centralized government.

The fact that it is still doing is , frankly, none of the Western liberals ( or right-wingers) business.

Especially given the fact that Russia is doing immeasurably better under efficient and authoritarian ( I don't deny it) Putin then under perpetually inebriated and criminally negligent liberal Yeltsin and his posse of Westenr liberal advisers.

[Greg Mirsky]

04:05 PM on 12/13/2010

Impact of Mongol invasion and Mongol rule, so-called 300 years of Mongolskoe igo, was overstated by Soviet historians. The fact is that very quickly Mongols became a scarecrow used by Russian nobles both in their internal fighting and to reap, control their own people.
As for "doing immeasurably better" I with strongly disagree. Alternative history, even for recent or current times is hardly measurable argument, but I'm convinced that Russians would have done much better if Bolshevik coup failed, was crushed in October, 1917.

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

04:32 PM on 12/13/2010

Really....so you're quite comfortable with bands of mafias running around killilng people whenever they feel like without repercussions huh? Good for you.

[POI]

09:11 PM on 12/13/2010

History fail.

Potemkin villages were new settlements (not fake) in recently-acquired New Russia (today southern Ukraine). Some became the cities of Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Sevastopol (which became important enough for both the British and the Germans to shell mercilessly as early as 1854).

[TYRANNASAURUS]

11:43 AM on 12/13/2010

One working party is still better than the two incompetent parties that we have.

[wwoody]

07:12 AM on 12/13/2010

Being one party system is something new in Russia?...there always been one party system. We have a two party system, we at least get to choose who we want in public office. In Russia they tell you who your leaders so you don't have to wonder.

[OneTop]

12:30 AM on 12/13/2010

It does look bad, but that is just form over substance.

The US has 2 parties, holds open elections on schedule and provides a lively forum for debate.
The form is excellent, the substance, not so much. In practice both parties represent the specific interests of BIG money at the expense of the individual.
It's just changing the deck chairs on the titanic every 2/4 years and another round of the same thing.
OMG it sounds just like the Russians !

[Siebenstein]

05:25 AM on 12/13/2010

F&F

[ICanHasDemocracy]

10:28 AM on 12/13/2010

Don't forget, you can purchase those deck chairs at Costco and Target.

[Chinalover]

07:21 PM on 12/12/2010

A one party state is preferable to this leaderless cat-fight we call a government.

[Drmhp]

08:36 PM on 12/12/2010

Here here. The frailty is the fed runs the country not the elected officials. Follow the money when you really want to know who is in charge.

[Drmhp]

08:37 PM on 12/12/2010

The realty is...

[omobob]

02:20 PM on 12/12/2010

One Party, how about a one man cult? Vald Putin is the hero/playboy of the new mother Russia. A personality cult Russia has not seen since the years of the terror.

[jo smith456]

01:36 PM on 12/12/2010

Glasnost; Perestroika. The US has really influenced the Russians....

[Cougar29]

01:03 PM on 12/12/2010

The USSR commited genocide, but only now the NYTimes claims offence...Hahaha! Hypocrites...Go Putin! 75% vote for you!

[Steamboater]

02:50 PM on 12/13/2010

Try gettng that about genocide into print in Russia and you'd become on eof the those who conveniently disappear.

[Foodgrade]

12:42 PM on 12/12/2010

See? They're catching up to the U.S.

[Talossa]

12:27 PM on 12/12/2010

A constant pining for, and obsequience reliance on, a "Strong Leader" has always been a tragic flaw in the Russian national character.

[GeorgieMark]

01:21 PM on 12/12/2010

Russia was never a country with strong multi party democracy.
Infact it only became a democracy with the fall of the Soviet Union. Before that the Czars ruled a vast plot of land, where most commoners were condemned from the cradle to die as serfs, at the hands of Russian aristocrats who paid (and I do mean pay) a rent for using the land and the serfs it came with to the Czar.

The Czarist state (much like the Soviet state) was an example par excellance in oppressing dissenting opinions, enforcing brutish laws at whim with the Czar being the Alpha and the Omega of Russian political life.

[Talossa]

04:08 PM on 12/12/2010

That's true, but there are plenty of countries that were not democratic and then became democratic. Russia seems to have more trouble than most.

[POI]

10:09 PM on 12/12/2010

It is hard to call anything before Putin a democracy, though. They had a leader whom everyone despised, a media seized (violently) by oligarchs, sham election in 96, and a broken constitution forced though in 93 (again violently).

[Steamboater]

03:02 PM on 12/13/2010

It's more than a pining for a string leader though with Russia. Russians have a religious fatalistic approach to life that often hasn't existed in other western counrties. If bad things happen to good people, it must be God's 'blessing' is more their thinkng than if bad things happen to good people, learn how to deal with it and go on with your life in the west. All this came about through the power of the eastern orhtodox church in Russia, which has seen a great revival since the revolution, and the power of the Tsars who reigned by divine right. The church even made the last Tsar a saint, a Tsar responsible for mass murder  and progroms.

[bioluminescence]

10:42 AM on 12/12/2010

U. S. politics is like the WWWF: two parties duking it out like professional wrestlers in mock battle. There's a good guy and a bad guy (you figure out which is which) but the only loser is the guy in the audience who thinks what he is watching is real.

Some European countries don't suffer under the illusion of a two-party system. But, unfortunately, many millions of Americans think they have real choices on election day.

[REDSTATEREFUGEE]

02:56 PM on 12/12/2010

x 35 , BL.....Your last sentence captures my thoughts precisely. After Obama's performances during 2010, it is apparent to me that the gap between the Dem and GOP is slowly narrowing. With each week that passes, my inclination to go Green becomes stronger. The U.S. definitely needs a true, viable, progressive party to which liberals can gravitate.

[Codefile]

08:50 PM on 12/12/2010

If the greens run against Obama, Palin will be POTUS.

[americaisracist]

11:35 PM on 12/12/2010

slowly? it's been that way for a while. who controls both parties? corporations & mainstream media. who controls corporations & mainstream media? wallstreet. who controls wallstreet? the global banking web. who controls that? Hint: the country where Jesus hung out.