Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, October 16, 2009

Russian protest

Is it more than symbolic?

Parties at Odds With Kremlin Stage Walkout
Opposition parties in Russia’s Parliament, which have long been relatively docile allies of the Kremlin, staged an unusual walkout on Wednesday to protest what they contended was pervasive fraud in local elections...

“This last election was the dirtiest that there has ever been,” said Gennadi A. Zyuganov, head of the Communist Party...

A nonpartisan monitoring organization said the local elections on Sunday, which occurred in Moscow and many other regions, were far from fair, with numerous reports of vote-rigging and other violations. United Russia swept most of the contests — for example, taking 32 of 35 seats in the Moscow city legislature.

Such malfeasance has marred many other recent elections in Russia, but opposition parties have typically done little more than file legal protests. It remains unclear whether they will try to press their case beyond the walkout...


Russia's Medvedev snubs opposition in election row
The Kremlin on Thursday said President Dmitry Medvedev backed the ruling party's landslide victory in disputed regional elections, snubbing opposition parties who walked out of parliament alleging vote-rigging...

When asked about the row, Kremlin spokeswoman Natalya Timakova told reporters that Medvedev's views had not changed from Monday when he hailed United Russia's victory as showing the party had a "legal and moral right" to run the regions...


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