Windows to Russia

In the run-up to the elections we have in fact witnessed two races simultaneously. One has been the presidential elections and the other a campaign to discredit the same. The first race has been fought between the five presidential candidates: Mironov, Prokhorov, Putin, Zhirinovsky and Zyuganov. The other race has been fought between, on one side, the Russian state and its people and, on the other side, a small but vocal and well-organized group of citizens of Russia, their media resources, and the Western press.

Behind the latter we find an assortment of American pressure groups (posing as NGOs) funded by the US Government and international oligarchs such as George Soros who share the same goals as the US Government. Ultimately – as much behind the scenes as possible – the operation is led by the US Government itself together with the leading European Union powers. We shall refer to this latter group consisting of the motley assembly of Russian citizens opposed to the rule-of-law, their media, the Western press, and the Western governments as the “opposition,” which they in this sense truly are, as they all oppose Putin with the goal of weakening Russia. As their nationalist thugs shout on their protest gatherings: “One for all, all for one.”

A good example on how all these interests come together is provided by the election monitoring group called Golos. The Western press and leading US and EU politicians love to refer to this organization as “Russia’s only independent elections monitor.” The statement about it being “independent” is truly interesting. Yes, it is totally independent of the Russian state, as independent as any warring party can possibly be. But, on the contrary, it is not independent of foreign influence, being in fact totally dependent of the US Government. It is quite openly acknowledged that Golos receives its funding from the US Government agency, USAID, and National Fund for Democracy (NED) and National Democratic Institute (NDI). These are two pressure groups that disguise themselves under the cover of NGOs but are in fact arms of the US Government and totally funded by it.

It is clear beyond any doubt that all the major “opposition” figures have some such connection to US Government, and that their activities are jointly coordinated by the latter. In this sense it is quite correct to say that the protests we saw all through the election process (and witness again now after the elections) have been initiated by the West. And obviously most of the herd that populates the protests does not recognize this fact. This is the whole point of the covert operation: to feed the public with disinformation coming from well financed and well planned propaganda sources while making sure the public adapt the ideas of the propaganda as their own. The ordinary participants are, of course, not paid anything for showing up on the protests. They genuinely believe in the cause. But the organizers are paid, as well that the xenophobic nationalist thugs that form their combat leagues.

The task of this “opposition” on ground in Russia is to produce scandals which serve as material for the local and Western press in their endeavor to distribute the anti-Putin and anti-Russian propaganda.

Democracy in Russia

It is often said that due to gender and racial prejudice a woman or a person coming from a minority has to be ten times stronger a specialist or manager than the white male peer in order to get the top appointments. We note a similar situation with the Russian electoral processes: due to the strong distrust towards Russian democracy Russia has to conduct elections ten times better than they do it in the USA. And Russia is sure doing a good job in meeting these exceptions. Nevertheless nothing is enough because the “opposition,” including its foreign sponsors, is not a bit interested in whether elections in Russia are fair and clean, for their only interest is to discredit the elections and Russia. And for the same reason they are not a bit interested in developing any democracy in Russia, not any more than their interest in finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Both projects serve the same purpose.

In the aftermath of the 2011 Duma elections, the Western press referring to the Russian blogosphere was abuzz with allegations of electoral fraud. Many of these were anecdotal or purely rhetorical in nature, some were more concrete, but variegated or ambiguous. Whatever misuses there were in reality they certainly occurred on much smaller scale than those that happen in every US election. – As I write, I observe that this same smear campaign against Russia has started all over again today with the Western press spreading centrally planned propaganda attacks, the central theses of which are (for some reason) repeated all over in the Western world almost word by word. – USA has its fair share of the problems with registered voters; there are the clips thrown into the YouTube about instances of fraud; there are the allegations of miscount of votes etc.

The Internet is awash with such scandals concerning US elections. We all remember the scandalous vote count in Florida in 2000 that awarded the US presidency to the losing candidate, George Bush, with catastrophic consequences for the whole world in form of wars, terror and financial meltdown. But this is not an isolated incident, these kinds of things happen all the time. The most recent cases come from the Republican Party primaries where, for example, the opposition candidate Ron Paul fell victim to election fraud when the votes for him were not properly counted in Maine.

The difference between the US and Russian cases is that nobody apart from the victims of the fraud care what happens in USA. The power and the media in USA are so totally in the hands of the so-called Democratic Party and the Republican Party, the two parties that share the eternal monopoly to power, that no other points of view get coverage, let alone have any chances to win in the maze of the US system of litigation. – This whereas the whole Western press in relation to Russia prey like vultures to snap up any bit of anecdotal evidence that could possibly serve as material to blow up a scandal.

Let’s look at the facts.

Ballot access for political parties

The two parties that have monopolized the power in the USA have ingenuously designed a system that makes it essential impossible for any other nationwide third parties to emergence. At the same time the prerogative for nominating candidates for president is with the monopoly parties. Among the various hurdles are the requirements to petition for party registration in each of the 50 states separately.

This is an arduous task that among other things require the collection of punitively many signatures and defending one’s constitutional rights in endless processes of litigation against the army of attorneys that the monopoly parties raise in order to block a new party from emerging. Once past the hurdles the parties have to immediately already in the following election secure a substantial following in terms of votes cast or else be dropped from future ballot access. For example, in the state of Alabama a party needs to poll at 20% in a state wide election to retain its ballot access. As a consequence of these undemocratic principles the two largest of the non-monopoly parties the Constitution Party and the Green Party are on the ballot in only 21 and 31 states, respectively, thus being counted out from any real political power.

In Russia the laws regulating party formation and nationwide ballot access are very lenient compared with the US laws. Presently only 40,000 signatures are needed for immediate nationwide access (to be compared with the 51 registrations in USA, 50 states and the capital area of Washington). According to a draft law put forward by President Medvedev, even this comparatively low threshold would be abolished so that only 500 signatures will be need in the future.

The USA also practices the very dubious single-mandate-district plurality system which awards the seats in legislatures only to the two monopoly parties. Russia’s proportional election system compares democratically very favorably with this.

Nomination of presidential candidates

The Western press and their governments have much criticized Russia for the fact that their favorite candidate, Mr. Yavlinsky, did not make it on the ballot. This was due to the fact that Yavlinsky did not manage to collect the needed 2 million votes. In the West this was presented as Yavlinsky having been “removed on a minor technicality.”

And yet the Western press does not have any problems with USA applying much harsher ballot access rules for candidates in a presidential race. In fact, the rules are so severe that a candidate rarely can even reach the situation where he would be recognized as a nationwide candidate, for in the USA the candidates are killed off on the level of each state. The conditions for ballot access in presidential elections are mainly the same for independent candidates and candidates from non-monopoly parties, which in turn are similar to those of gaining ballot access for parties.

The candidates from non-monopoly parties have to petition for ballot access in each state separately (as described above) and either register a party in each state (or confirm that registration anew for each election) or go through the same processes as independent candidates of petitioning for being accepted as a candidate. This involves the collection of some 2,900,000 signatures in total nationwide broken into separate absurdly cumbersome processes in each of the 50 states.

And to boot the rules and timing are different in every state making it very unlikely that anybody could possibly overcome all the hurdles. And naturally it has been very rare that any independent candidates have ever run in the USA, let alone succeeded – in fact, nobody after the first president George Washington has managed the task. The process is so difficult and therefore costly that the quintessential condition for giving it even a try in the first place is that the candidate is a billionaire. An American Yavlinsky could not even dream of it no matter how many signatures he copied.

There are exotic undemocratic rules in other countries, too. For example, in France a person cannot gain ballot access without receiving approval from the existing political elite. To stand, candidates need to muster 500 signatures from mayors or other elected officials across France. This is an undemocratic system which is designed to protect the powers that be from any competition.

The existing system in Russia already compares democratically very favorably to the laws of these two countries of which we have been taught to thinks as the cradles of democracy. And now according to the draft law the Russian ballot access for presidential candidates will be further liberalized so that only 300 thousand signatures will be needed nationwide

Voter registration

In the USA not only parties and candidates have to go through these cumbersome processes of gaining ballot access, even every single voter has to go through a process of registration in order to participate in elections. This when most civilized countries, including Russia, run a system whereby the state has the obligation to ensure registration and no special action is required by the voter.

The result of these undemocratic practices in the USA has been a total chaos. A recent US report (PEW 2012) showed that more than 50 million US citizens – one in four – where denied their constitutional right to vote in view of not being properly registered. Some 24 million – one in eight – of these are voter registrations which are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate due to the mismanagement of citizens’ rights. About 12 million voter records have incorrect addresses, indicating that either the voters have moved, or errors in the file make it unlikely the U.S. Postal Service can reach them. And some 2.75 million people (most of them adhering to the monopoly parties) have registrations in more than one state. And more than 1.8 million Americans currently listed as voters are deceased.

In addition to the in itself peculiar requirement to register in order to upheld the constitutional right, the voter is in most states asked in connection with registration to disclose his party affiliation (there goes the secrecy of ballot) and even race!

The Russian “opposition” cheered by the Western press reported (complete with the highest evidence of all in this brave new world where the mind is numbed by the propaganda of the dominant press: YouTube clips) that the alleged fraud in the December Duma elections was substantiated by the fact that some voters were not enrolled in the list of eligible voters at their polling stations. Yes, such instances occurred, but here two things are radically different in favor of Russia. Firstly, in the Duma elections only some 700,000 voters were not correctly registered, which is less than one percent of all the voters, and which in itself compares favorably with the truly amazing figures coming in from the USA. Secondly, the voter does not lose his right to vote just for the reason of not being registered. The voter can anyway vote at his place of residence by showing a valid identification (the domestic passport that each Russian citizen carries, which also contains the proof of residence).

Media coverage

The US and UK media which don’t allocate as much as a passing mention to any candidate beyond their respective monopoly parties have been particularly harsh on criticizing Russia for what they deem as “media bias and lack of impartiality” in covering the candidates. And yet in Russia the candidates in fact get equal access to state media. We have seen all the candidates constantly appear on state television equal time (9 hours per channel), without any relevance to their popularity or past electoral success.

At the same time the Russian printed press is very free and highly competitive in opinions. It seems that the mainstream press has been overwhelmingly against candidate Putin. Notwithstanding this fact, they insist in the West that there is no media freedom in Russia. And in a double twist of logic, the Western press frequently refer to Russian media reports writing about these things.

Democracy Made in USA and exported at gunpoint

Considering all these incredible problems with democracy in America, we can only wonder how anybody has wanted to make it a product for export – the more at gunpoint. How can the Iraqis and Afghans ever create the two needed monopoly parties? How will they devise these complex and discriminatory systems for registering parties and getting ballot access? And from where will they get all the lawyers that will fight to deprive citizens of their constitutional rights? And how do you explain to them that voters will not be eligible to vote just like that and that a lot of hindrances have to be devised for this purpose as well?

The electoral process (voting system)

We have seen that not much of the criticism against the Russian elections stand up to scrutiny. Finally we may look at how the electoral process, or voting system, is organized in Russia.

The Western press is ripe with allegations of ballot stuffing and vote count fraud. But these accusations cannot be justified either…

In these presidential elections there are some 1,200,000 people working on the polling stations and election commissions of all levels. About half of them are appointed by the political parties. In addition to this there are some 300 thousand observers monitoring the elections, including 700 foreign observers. Each polling station has an election commission that consists of members of all the parties. And in addition to these the observers assigned by each candidate will supervise the vote count at each polling station until the final vote count protocol at the station is signed. There is clearly no room for any fraud here.

In addition to this each polling station has been occupied with two web cameras that allows to physical count each voter as he enters the voting booth and casts his ballot. These counts can be compared with the actual votes in the final protocol making it impossible to do any ballot stuffing.

It should be noted that contrary to the provocations that the Western media has so eagerly picked up it is impossible to misuse absentee ballots, because the absentee ballot can only be used by the person to whom it was issued by presenting it together with his passport at the polling station where he uses it.

The writer (Jon Hellevig) is a Finnish lawyer and Managing Partner of Hellevig, Klein & Usov (www.hkupartners.com) who has lived in Moscow for 15 years. He has written the book Expressions and Interpretations (www.hellevig.ru) discussing Russia’s social development from the viewpoint of philosophy and philosophy of law. He is also the author of several books on the Russian tax and labor law…

 

The views of the above author are not strictly the views of Windows to Russia. They are an independent view from an outside source and country that brings a better light on the world in general and Windows to Russia is pleased to have Jon Hellevig’s article on its pages today. It is hoped that we will have many more of his writings in the future…

Posted by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

PS: This article should get me knocked offline 4 or 5 times…

I want you to see a news report from this side of the world about Syria. No this is not a reprint of Western mass media but is ItarTass printing what the East says about the Syria situation…

You will not see this printed this way in your media border locked Western country you live in…

The situation remains tense in Syria. Government troops shelled the rebels’ positions in the cities of Al-Quseir and Ar-Rastan on Sunday, while continuing to wipe out the remaining pockets of resistance in the city of Homs.

Groups of terrorists have been killed in two of Homs districts. This made it possible to start rebuilding the section of an oil pipeline that rebel fighters blew up a while ago. 115 bodies of civilians, killed by rebels, have been found in the Baba Amr district of Homs.

According to military sources, many buildings and streets in the area have been mined, so the authorities are compelled to deny requests from Red Cross officials to start handing out humanitarian aid. TASS

Notice the word terrorists to describe the rebels? Notice that rebel fighters blew up pipeline? Notice that 115 bodies have been found killed by rebels? Noticed why the Red Cross has to wait to enter certain areas of the cities? Did you notice a huge diference in what is happening in Syria?

This is not about what to believe because there are two sides to everything. This is about a group of terrorists that are backed by the Western governments of the world, specifically America, Britain and France – That are being payed to try to cause a civil war in Syria…

This is about the difference between right and wrong, night and day, black and white or evil and good. The West have become the bad-guys in this Hollywood movie and folks that makes me very sad… 🙁

Kyle
Windows to Russia!

PS: Syria had an advantage over Libya because Russia has a navel port in Syria. That has stopped a whole bunch of American games from happening. Syria is a whole other ball game, but the West will not give up! They are obsessed and fanatics, over world domination…

This morning as I sipped that cup of delicious coffee (or chicory in my case), I was doing some thinking’s about webcams that I was able to watch yesterday as the presidential election unfolded in Russia. It was amazing and really an incredible feat pulled off by Russia. I was able to watch deep in the heart of Siberia, a mother with her three children vote and then I was able to move to Moscow and watch a mother with her three children vote. Then I could watch a Babushka vote in Saint Petersburg and so on and so on and so on and so on…

Why Sveta and sat and watched them count the votes at the polling station where she cast her vote. I will be posting that video in the next few days. Then I will also post a video of many of the polling stations that I jumped to. They are from all over Russia…

The photo above is the election monitoring command center that allowed the officials to keep an eye on what was happening all over Russia. It is rather impressive how in such a short time that Russia put a network together that encompassed over 90,000 webcams and hardly had an issue keeping it online through the whole process…

I am going to post a long video of what I recorded because I really think that you need to see Russia, as Russia really is. Everywhere I went on the webcam system I saw what I see as everyday life in Russia. Why we got to even watch the cleaning lady mop the floors as they shut the buildings down for the night. The exception of everyday life for me was in Siberia where you could tell by the way people were dressed that cold was an understatement. I was mesmerized by the difference in people in that part of Russia. They had such a hardened look about them and it was hard to tell ages by the faces because they were all weather worn by a hard life.  It was really interesting… 🙂

Russia had webcams everywhere and I mean everywhere. In fact I have found many webcams still running and the polling stations are empty and clean. The photo below is what you see to start your search. You click on the blue square nearest to where you live and then you work your way to your favorite polling station one click at a time. The squares have the number of polling stations inside of the box – visible. It was great and worked fantastic…

http://webvybory2012.ru/#81132  is the link if you still want to play around. You can still find a site open if you look hard enough and occasionally you will find someone messing around and cleaning…

That is how I found/made a video of Sveta and her son Misha voting: http://windowstorussia.com/sveta-and-misha-voting-in-russia.html

I have one last thought: Hey America! You need to do this same thing and make the voting process in America just as open and free as in Russia! The heat is on America – Can you match Russia in being an open democracy?

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

This is a video of Sveta and her son Misha voting in the presidential election. At the start of the video you will see two people enter at the top left of the screen. Sveta is in the white coat and hat and her son is right in front of her. Sveta knows that two people are watching her and twice she waves at the camera. She is waving to me (I hope :)) and her friend from the north that I have mentioned before on the website. (Link)

By the way I have several hours of video that records the happenings during the election and they range from Kaliningrad to the heart of Siberia and more. I will be putting together a video of the core parts of what I have and you will see it was a clean cut and very well run election day. In fact I wish that America would allow such open view of the process. I watched people cast their vote to the very end process as the workers counted ballots…

Not a computer in sight involved in the process and everything was on paper. Also after hours of watching I only saw one time that I would question any activities that I saw. I watched at around 2am in the morning (Way after the election was called!)  I found a Siberian polling station open on the web cam. I watched a person walk up and vote at that time of the morning. There was officials there and they were still operating this polling station. The time was correct on the camera and all. I then looked up where it was at and maybe just maybe they stayed open much later because they were in the middle of nowhere and “Timbucktoo” as we say in America. There may have been 25 people who even could vote at this station. I would say that people voted as they were capable of getting there, if they even could get there in this isolated spot…

As Sveta would say, “That is just right!”

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

The US-funded NGO GOLOS (meaning “vote” or “voice”) conducted an exit poll based on SMS-messages received by its own observers at the voting stations. According to its own results, Putin still gathered up 53.12 per cent of the vote, which, once again is more than enough to secure victory in the first round. He was followed by Zyuganov with 19.36 per cent, Prokhorov with 14.04 per cent, and Zhirinovsky with 6.79 per cent and Mironov with 5 per cent…

This is coming from an organization that lies, cheats and steals under the cover of a US blanket. If anyone who shelled out as much money as the US-funded NGO GOLOS to buy votes away from Putin, as they did in Russia, has to admit that Putin won – then you know Putin won…

No partying last night for the US backed scum in Russia…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

PS: Now what you get in the Western press, will not be the same…

And their website at this point shows one violation and it is fabricated. I guess they need more time to make up lies or they are stunned that it was so hard to play the fool this time. Russians are on to them and the spotlight is on NGO GOLOS as a viable organization that should even be allowed to exist in Russia…

All I can tell you is that there is a bunch of people and Moscow is rocking tonight! (They say 110,000 and growing like a weed!)

Putin is kicking butt and taking names later!

Now the opposition is singing the blues…

I just love the Blues  and  Jazz – so I hope they sing good for us! 🙂

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

PS: The Western media is singing right there with the opposition and it is hilarious…

Russia’s presidential election is over. At 9 p.m. Moscow time voting stations in Russia’s westernmost Kaliningrad region closed. According to exit polls, Vladimir Putin leads the election with 58,3%.

Other candidates have scored:

Gennady Zyuganov (the Communist Party) 17,7%

Independent candidate Mikhail Prokhorov 9,2%

Vladimir Zhirinovsky (the Liberal-Democratic Party) 8,5%

Sergey Mironov (A Just Russia) 4,8%.

A poll of voters was conducted in 1000 stations in 63 Russian regions. 31,7% of the respondents refused to answer.

Windows to Russia!

Vladimir Zhirinovsky: The loyal voice of populism – Age: 65…

Career path:

The enfant terrible of Russian politics, infamous for slogans such as “a guy for every broad, a bottle of vodka for every guy,” his Liberal Democratic Party led the 1993 parliamentary vote with 22 percent. Zhirinovsky’s career has since encompassed many a brawl with opponents on camera and incendiary statements. But his party never developed a wider following – though retaining a presence in all five Dumas since – and Zhirinovsky’s presidential campaigns in 1991, 1996, 2000 and 2008 fared no better.

Many Russians see that Zhirinovsky’s image and rhetoric contrasts sharply with his acquiescence with the political status quo. Though he excels in lambasting the authorities, his party has always sided with the Kremlin on all important issues. The party acts as a lightning rod for popular nationalism: the Liberal Democrats are the only mainstream political force allowed to flirt with it, but their campaign slogan for the December parliamentary elections, “LDPR for Russians,” was not backed with any legislative action. Zhirinovsky’s policies will win votes with many “boot-wearing” Russians, especially among the poor and uneducated, but he is likely to find few friends among the growing number of middle-class voters seeking change.

Zhirinovsky is the least likely of the five candidates to offer any surprises during the campaign and he has no new tricks to sway voters outside his usual constituency. The fatigue factor is also there: like Putin and Zyuganov, he has probably been around too long to inspire new voters.

Gennady Zyuganov: Eternal contender – Age: 67…

Career path:

A Party man to the bone, Zyuganov has been a career Communist since the 1970s, and did not quit even when the party no longer was in power. The head of the Communist Party of Russia for 19 years, Zyuganov’s hour of glory came in 1996, when he was a hair’s breadth away from defeating Boris Yeltsin in the presidential race – but he lost. He has remained a fixture of the Russian political scene since, and lost two more presidential elections, in 2000 and 2008, to no one’s great surprise.

The Communists are the most powerful political force in the country not directly controlled by the Kremlin. They have learned to accommodate the system, however, and critics have often accused Zuyganov and his party of covertly coordinating their actions with the Kremlin. Perhaps a more serious concern, however, is the party’s reluctance to modernize by embracing a European-styled social-democratic stance that might have wider appeal. The Communists stick to the past, resolutely touting Soviet-era slogans including even Josef Stalin, impressing only their ever-shrinking hardcore of grey-haired supporters.

If the public is tired of Putin, the same goes double for Zyuganov, who has been in impotent opposition for two decades without any real responsibility. But he, along with Mikhail Prokhorov, is one of the two candidates most likely to pick up the votes of those who just want to vote “against Putin” (not an option directly available on the ballots). He may find it hard going in a runoff against Putin, with many older Russians unlikely to want a return to the past, and younger voters not connecting with his tired image.

Sergei Mironov: The undecided one – Age: 58…

Career path:

A friend of current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin from their St. Petersburg days in the 1990s, Mironov got the cushy job of speaker for the Federation Council, the parliament’s upper chamber in 2001. In 2006, he was also made the head of the newly created A Just Russia, a Kremlin spoiler for the Communists, which is where his troubles began.

A Just Russia gradually discovered the only way to political survival was to target the ruling United Russia, not the opposition Communists, but the party in power took offense when its own ratings started to sag. Mironov struggled to balance his attacks on the ruling party with his personal loyalty to Putin – who heads United Russia – but found it increasingly hard to do, especially after United Russia ousted him from the Federation Council job, pushing him toward an opposition stance he has struggled to clearly embrace.

Most of A Just Russia is decidedly anti-Kremlin, with party leaders co-staging anti-government protests in Moscow this winter, but Mironov is seen by many voters as the notable exception. If the party had fielded anyone else for the presidential race, the “stalking donkey” could have had a good run at carrying the protest vote. But candidate Mironov, who ran in 2004 even while professing support for Putin and winning 0.75 percent of the vote, will put off the malcontents.

To his credit, Mironov has made some bold statements, being the only candidate on the ballot who supported the opposition’s demands for the next president to implement political reforms and resign within a year or two. But it will take more than a few daring promises to undo the reputation of a Kremlin yes-man that Mironov spent years cultivating. Pro-government voters, meanwhile, have no need for him because they already have Putin.

Mikhail Prokhorov: “Not a Kremlin project” – Age: 46…

Career path:

Prokhorov is the only new face on the ballot, and the center of this election’s intrigue. A mogul who made his fortune in metals with an estimated fortune of $18 billion, he was best known for his glitzy playboy lifestyle and high-profile business ventures such as purchasing the New Jersey Nets basketball team. Then he suddenly dived headfirst into politics, heading The Right Cause, a failed Kremlin project to win the middle-class vote from the late 2000s. But when Prokhorov rocked the boat by launching a vigorous campaign bordering on populism, he was promptly ousted from The Right Cause in what he called a government-orchestrated coup, orchestrated, he claimed, by former deputy Kremlin chief of staff Vladislav Surkov. In December, he announced his presidential bid and was the only one of three independents to be accepted by the Central Elections Commission – reviving suspicions from critics that the Kremlin was sanctioning his role.

Most voters are convinced Prokhorov is a Kremlin project, but for many, it would not matter: a large part of the populace just wants to vote against Putin, and on that basis, any candidate will do. Though the old and the poor would prefer Communist Gennady Zyuganov, many in the middle class are likely to opt for Prokhorov, who braved street protests this winter (getting pelted once by snowballs from anarchists). He has made the right political noises for the middle class and young, setting out an admittedly populist program of reform, promising political freedoms, improving the economic climate and reining in the bureaucracy – in essence, dismantling the legacy of Putin, who is the main target of protesters. But Prokhorov also flirted with the ruling establishment, saying he would not mind being a prime minister under a victorious Putin, or even keep him as the head of the government if Prokhorov himself ascends to the Kremlin.

Vladimir Putin: Comeback hopeful Age: 59…

Career path:

A mid-level KGB officer in the 1980s and a City Hall official in St. Petersburg in the 1990s, Putin was catapulted to the ranks of the world’s most powerful men after President Boris Yeltsin endorsed him as his successor in 2000. Putin traded the Kremlin job for the top seat in the government after two presidential stints in 2000-2008 because the Constitution prohibits more than two consecutive presidential terms, but installed in his place Dmitry Medvedev, his loyal retainer who meekly agreed last fall not to seek reelection and trade places with Putin after the March 4 vote.

Putin’s supporters credit him with bringing stability to the nation after the “turbulent nineties,” reviving the economy and ensuring that teachers, doctors and other state employees no longer live below the poverty line, mainly thanks to Russia’s vast windfall from oil and gas revenues. But critics say Putin ushered in a bureaucratic regime, giving state officials unchecked powers in exchange for loyalty, which resulted in political stagnation, skyrocketing corruption and dismal economic performance. Russia ranked 143rd of 183 countries in Transparency International’s latest corruption rating, and capital outflow in 2011 stood at $84 billion.

The main question is whether the biggest figure in Russian politics can avoid a runoff, which he has never faced before. A second round would undermine his claims of being a national leader and the legitimacy of his policies are questioned by a growing number of malcontents, and would mean he faces a united, rather than split, opposition vote. Putin’s core constituency is very broad, including the huge number of state employees, the low-paid residents of small towns, and the vast number of Russians who crave stability rather than change.

Putin has been around for 12 years now, however, and fatigue is beginning to set in among many voters who want to see more. The fledgling middle class, meanwhile, vehemently opposes Putin: it already rallied against him in the tens of thousands after his party, United Russia, won the parliamentary elections in December, accusing the authorities of foul electoral play.

In his recent statements to the media, critics see little that promises anything except more of the same in a future term. Or maybe two. His supporters will vote for just that.

Windows to Russia!

Dmitry Medvedev with his wife Svetlana will arrive at the same polling station number 2634, where they voted for the last few years…

Wouldn’t you like to know who he voted for? I do! I also wonder what he is thinking? This has to be strange for him, as he has been the president of Russia for 4 years now and has made a lot of changes. But it sounds like Putin will put him in as Prime Minister so I do not think that he will suffer much…

Russians are out in droves today and they are voting. The babushkas are everywhere and that means don’t get in their way… 🙂

Updates will be on the Russian News From Russia website. (Link to Russian News From Russia)

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!

http://webvybory2012.ru/#81132

The link above is the polling station that Sveta will be voting at! It is really cool here in Russia, as I can look at any polling station in the country. The ones in Siberia are really neat to watch. Sveta is going to let me know when she is going in and I am going to try to catch her on video. I think that is neat…

Sveta has to travel all the way across Moscow to vote and will meet her mom in a hour or so. Then they will have dinner and tea, to talk about politics for awhile…

600,000 people have volunteered to watch the whole day to make sure that no one cheats. It looks like Putin implemented everything in time and now the West will have a real hard time to play games, because even you sitting in America can watch the voting going on. Got issues with trust? Looks like it is all out in the open here in Russia. Nothing electronic, all paper ballots…

Hard to cheat the system when you can’t make a simple software implement to corrupt it. Like it is done in America…

So maybe I can get Sveta on the screen while she votes. I will try and or I hope I found the correct polling station for her. Looks like we will find out… 🙂

I just wish I could vote in Russia!

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!