Today's Election

So today's election to Russian duma is almost over now. If you compare the composition of previous dumas and forecast for the duma to be it's easy to notice the sad tendency that the party in power becomes more and more prevailing and the number of members and diversity of opposition is constantly decreasing. The United Russia party (UR) is becoming more and more disgusting more and more like the Communist party of the Soviet Union. There is a lot of disgusting Putin-ass-licking in media, some youth organizations, among famous people and so on. Like, a lot of famous people signed a letter asking the president to stay for the third term (kind of petition to a Czar :)) The culmination of the electoral campaign was Putin's consent to head the United Russia party list and his speech at the meeting of his supporters in Luzhniki stadium. When I saw this speech on TV I was really scared and shocked. I never saw him like this, he is usually rather reserved but there he was so aggresive. I'd describe him as a combination of "I'm so cool and tough" and "who is not with us(=those who don't support my program and my party) are against us(=enemies of Russia)" attitudes. And he looked very much like a pop star(and no, he didn't sing, thanks God :)). At first I thought perhaps I was being too sensitive but then I learned that this shocked a lot of people of various political views. Someone even called him Putinbashi (like turkmenbashi). I was never Putin's supporter but I thought better of him. Of course this pop star thing was probably directed at the youth who were the majority there but I think that any normal person would find such behaviour disgusting. Well, maybe it's even better that he finally showed his true face and this will repulse people who hesitated about him. The way UR led their campaign was disgusting but predictable, it exploited Putin's popularity which is higher than theirs and they did everything to be seen "blended" with Putin, for instance they used posters that showed a ballot with a vote for UR and a phrase "for Putin!".
Some years ago the present duma made changes to the electoral system and now to get into duma a party must recieve over 7% of votes, before it was 5%, personally I think that such barrier shouldn't exist at all. Also we now can vote only for party lists, the constituency vote which was an opportunity for a party that couldn't get over the 5% barrier or for a candidate with no party to get into duma has been canceled, actually the question whether this change is negative is arguable because this vote also icreases the number of seats of the majority party . The choice "against all" has been canceled too.

According to election forecasts the United Russia gets about 70% of votes and the only other party that is going to be elected is the Communist party(14%). Another party that is close to get over the 7% barrier is the Liberal democratic party of Russia. Despite the name the party is one of the less liberal and less demoratic parties in Russia - one of the most authoritarian and nationalistic. Their leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky is a special case, he often behaves as an asshole but can be a good showman(people often call him a clown) and is often very funny. Though a lot of people think that he and his party is a joke he always got 10-15% of votes. Some people vote for him only because he is funny. The party Fair Russia has also some chances. They were formed recently and include 3 parties one of which is the infamous Rodina with nationalistic leanings and once they proposed a law against gay marriges and gay propoganda . They call themseves Socialists and Social democrats but they also support Putin and their leader Sergey Mironov is a big Putin ass licker. There exists an opinion that they are only an illusion of opposition and their creation was also supported by the president administration. Traditionally I vote for parties who consistently support democracy, civil liberties and human rights. For current election it's Yabloko (slight but increasing leaning towards Social democracy) for which I voted and Union of Right Forces(more right wing economically as the name suggests but still Ok). They all have a lot of problems and neither has my comlete support but in the current political situation I wish them both as much votes as possible.