CFN – Russia is being rocked by the election results as media reports scream of mass arrests and suppression of protesters as Vladimir Putin returned to power as President of Russia Sunday in an election charged with complaints of abuse and fraud.
Mr. Putin, the former head of the now defunct KGB served a previous term, but was forced to step down because of the Russian Constitution. He was replaced by his protege who did not block Mr. Putin’s return to power.
Mr. Putin’s nomination and election win has been marred by mass protests and complaints. Mr. Putin even refused to participate in debates during the election showing an utter disdain of the process.
Several opposition leaders were arrested and journalists reportedly beaten during scuffles with police in riot gear, GRN’s Jessica Gollogher told CBC News from Moscow.
What began as a peaceful demonstration that drew about 20,000 angry citizens to downtown Moscow reportedly turned violent for several hundred.
Arrested Political Activist and Blogger Aleksei Navalny
“This was a procedure and not really an election,” Mr. Navalny said late Sunday night, as he watched the election returns came in from a café crowded with supporters. “It’s historic in that up until today, Putin had some claim on legitimacy as a political leader, but now that he has run this fake election marked by mass fraud to become emperor, he has none.”
He said, when someone asked, that he was not concerned about being arrested.
“I am just one cog in a very big machine,” he said. “If we have to, we will stay in the streets forever until they accept our demands.
Video of Protest and Arrests
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9WbVEWaNXQ
So valued viewers of the Cornwall Free News, what do you think of the Russian Election?
You can post your comments below.
Mr. Putin’s top officials do not accept that he has been damaged in any way by the allegations of fraud. All the same, things are changing fast in Russia.
Mr. Putin will blame Western interference for the protests but that is a strategy which has diminishing results. His main spokesman told me Mr. Putin was really a liberal and was changing as Russia changed.
But that is unlikely to make Mr. Putin easier for Western governments to deal with and British officials in particular think he may, if anything, be more difficult and more touchy especially if the protests continue rather than fade away.
Will Mr. Putin last out his six-year term? A surprising number of political observers think he will not and it is very hard indeed to think he will get another term after this one.
What will the opposition do now? They cannot, of course, change the popular mood. There will be no revolution, no insurrection against the new-former Kremlin chief. Instead, there are just two possibilities:
•Resignation: Four million Russians have left Russia in the last two decades and most of them were highly qualified, according to Vladimir Ryzhkov, one of the opposition leaders. That equals roughly the population of Finland. Ryzhkov has suggested that Putin’s return to the Kremlin will spark a fresh wave of emigration. As those who gathered on Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square and the Sakharov Prospect in December to urge political reforms now know: The Russian leadership is deaf. Why would they continue to protest? Instead, they will likely move to the West, along with other circles from the Russian capital. By summer, the atmosphere of protest may be long gone.
•Unification among the fragmented opposition: The opposition could attempt to agree on their own program and, in a kind of protest pact, set up their own party that the majority of the middle class can identify with. This would begin the trek through the political institutions and, with the next general election; they could make it into the Duma. This won’t be easy, certainly not in Russia, where those in power prefer to quell competition in its early stages. It will take patience.
But there simply aren’t any other options.
Let’s not show that picture of Dubya and Putin to our dear leader. Stephen would walk funny for a month if he ever saw that.