After all the fuss, Putin actually won the Russian Presidential Election pretty comfortably. As I write this, 99.3% of the votes have been counted, and Putin got 63.75% of them and his nearest challenger (Gennady Zyuganov, of course) scored a mere 17.19%. There’s a lot to think about after the election, and I thought I’d [...]
Moscow gearing up for more rallies
Moscow is gearing itself up for more protests and rallies on 23 February. Approval has already been given for two large rallies – one pro-Putin and one pro-Communist – and decisions are due shortly on a number of other rallies. What are the political parties doing? The Communists have scored a bit of a coup [...]
Duelling Rallies in Moscow
Saturday saw Muscovites take to the streets in a duelling pair of rallies expressing both support and opposition for Vladimir Putin and his campaign to return to the Russian Presidency. The rallies attracted between 75,000 and 200,000 people in total, but no-one really knows for sure how many attended. With all the different claims and [...]
Yavlinsky and Mezentsev barred from Russian Election
The Central Election Commission (CEC) has confirmed liberal Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky and independent candidate Dmitry Mezentsev will not be allowed to enter the 2012 Russian Presidential Election. Although both candidates claimed that they had obtained the 2 million signatures needed for a candidate from a party not represented in the Duma to secure a [...]
Prokhorov and Yavlinsky collect 2 million signatures needed to run for Russian President
Opposition politicians Mikhail Prokhorov and Grigory Yavlinsky have each announced that they have collected the two million signatures needed for them to enter the 2012 Russian Presidential election race. Prokhorov, who with $18 billion to his name is Russia’s third richest man, plans to run as an independent candidate with no party backing and Yavlinsky [...]
Russian Presidential Elections Roundup
It’s been a busy few days for Russian elections news, so I thought I’d roundup a few of the key stories that caught my eye. Webcams in every polling station In his recent marathon TV interview, Vladimir Putin proposed placing webcams in every single polling station during March’s Presidential election. The proposal came in reaction [...]
Mikhail Prokhorov: Russia’s next Prime Minister?
Mikhail Prokhorov’s dramatic entry into the 2012 Russian Presidential race has caused confusion among analysts. Put simply, no-one can fathom why Russia’s third richest man would want to have another stab at entering Russian politics. After his humiliating failure this summer – Prokhorov announced to great fanfare that he would turn Right Cause into a [...]