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Election day in Russia.

Doubt

Philosopher
Doubt
Joined
Apr 25, 2002
Messages
8,106
Here I sit at my computer watching election coverage in a country I never expected to visit when I was young. As a former cold warrior, I still find it funny that I am here at all.

Here is what I observed in the city that I am in: Nothing. I did not go out looking either. But I am living in an apartment right next to a federal government building that includes the local police station.

Now I am watching the returns on TV. I am incompetent to provide anyone a play by play of what is happening since I can barely speak enough Russian to order food at McDonald's.

The TV stations started covering the returns about 8 PM. They have several talking heads comparing the results. This is a waste of time since everybody knew who was going to win anyway. This is, however the first time I have even seen pictures of candidates who are not Putin’s hand picked successor. (I have been here continuously since Jan. 4th.)

The two stations I have been watching have no big nationwide graphic like we have in the US. But they also don’t have the electoral college BS to deal with. What they do have are studio audiences that applaud periodically. What statements they are applauding I don’t have a clue about. Who and where these people came from I also don’t know anything about either.

One station went to live coverage on Red Square where a band was playing. Not sure what that was all about. I could ask my translator tomorrow, but I am pretty sure she is not paying attention to the coverage.

I did hear one reporter using the term “exit poll”. That was the English words they used, not something I managed to sort out with my very limited Russian. Medvedev is winning by a wide margin, which is what was expected. The current second place candidate for president has a bit under 20% of the vote, which is more than I expected based on the coverage from the US.

Pre-election coverage on TV was sparse. The opposition was not covered at all from what I could see. As best I can tell, few of the people I have been working with had any plans to vote today. (I only asked two of them.)

It is nice to see that the two stations don’t show the exact same totals for percentages. I have not seen any raw numbers for vote totals.

I do know that there was at least some real competition at the local level for some offices. I saw one political poster that had been up for only a couple of days defaced and eventually covered over with posters for the competitors. Fliers even showed up in my mail box for different candidates. I never tried to translate more than a few slogans from those fliers.

One thing to note based on my recent travels is that all political advertisements appear to follow similar formats these days. Last fall I was in Mexico and the posters and billboards had the same basic format. Candidate off to one side and the big print they want you to read on the other side. Details down at the bottom and the flag behind the candidate.
 
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Today's elections are about as free and fair as the ones in the Soviet days. Russians seem to want it that way.
 
Doubt said:
I did hear one reporter using the term “exit poll”. That was the English words they used, not something I managed to sort out with my very limited Russian. Medvedev is winning by a wide margin, which is what was expected. The current second place candidate for president has a bit under 20% of the vote, which is more than I expected based on the coverage from the US.

Pre-election coverage on TV was sparse. The opposition was not covered at all from what I could see. As best I can tell, few of the people I have been working with had any plans to vote today. (I only asked two of them.)
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Gary Kasparov and Ron Paul: political twins separated at birth.

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

I wonder if one is allowed to sing that in Russian. I hope so.

(The Who/ Won't Get Fooled Again, chorus and very last line)

DR
 
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WildCat said:
Today's elections are about as free and fair as the ones in the Soviet days. Russians seem to want it that way.
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According to what I just heard on the news it seems that someone in Russia has got fed up of political activists there saying that the elections were neither free nor fair; the police have started arresting "dozens of opposition activists".
 
richardm said:
According to what I just heard on the news it seems that someone in Russia has got fed up of political activists there saying that the elections were neither free nor fair; the police have started arresting "dozens of opposition activists".
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The beatings will continue until morale improves.
 
richardm said:
According to what I just heard on the news it seems that someone in Russia has got fed up of political activists there saying that the elections were neither free nor fair; the police have started arresting "dozens of opposition activists".
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Well, since only one side got media coverage, fair does not enter the picture.

Free? I have no way of knowing. The general reaction at work was nothing. Nobody excited or disappointed. A quick look at the news this evening still did not show any graphics with raw vote numbers.
 
Doubt said:
Yes, percentages we are getting here. But no raw numbers. How many people even bothered to vote?
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Wouldn't it be sad if it were more people (proportionally) than those who vote in similar elections in the US?
 
Darth Rotor said:
Gary Kasparov and Ron Paul: political twins separated at birth.
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Ron Paul gets his message out loud and clear. People listen to him, and reject it.

Kasparov is operating in a milleau where the main TV and radio are either government owned or government controlled. Putin went through a pogrom of stomping out competition. Investigative reporters died. Stations had their control seized one way or another. There was even a US company that came in to help him manage his new stations, much to our shame. Like a company that helps China set up tools to monitor the Internet to jail dissenters.

It may or may not be the case that Putin is wildly popular. But even if a 100% accurate poll demonstrated this, it is in the context of criticism being silenced through violence and seizure of equipment. It's almost like a poll in North Korea where everybody likes The Pompadour because he's all they know and the gubmint may be monitoring the pollster's phone calls, and who wants to maybe disappear the next day if they give the wrong answer?
 
Beerina said:
Ron Paul gets his message out loud and clear. People listen to him, and reject it.

Kasparov is operating in a milleau where the main TV and radio are either government owned or government controlled. Putin went through a pogrom of stomping out competition. Investigative reporters died. Stations had their control seized one way or another. There was even a US company that came in to help him manage his new stations, much to our shame. Like a company that helps China set up tools to monitor the Internet to jail dissenters.

It may or may not be the case that Putin is wildly popular. But even if a 100% accurate poll demonstrated this, it is in the context of criticism being silenced through violence and seizure of equipment. It's almost like a poll in North Korea where everybody likes The Pompadour because he's all they know and the gubmint may be monitoring the pollster's phone calls, and who wants to maybe disappear the next day if they give the wrong answer?
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I have a different take on Russia.

The US coddled all sorts of tin pot dictators of small countries for years, all over the world. The list is rather long.

The US coddled Musharaf when it was convenient, in a rather bigger Third World country.

But did the US do that when Russia collapsed into being the biggest third world country in the early 1990s?

No.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The golden opportunity for the US and NATO to get Russia on our team came, and went. I had great hopes early in Bush's first term, when he and Vlad signed off on both reducing nuclear stockpiles by 70% each over the next ten years, and agreed to work together on terrorism: Vlad had his Chechnya problem, W his with the various rag headed factions.

And that was pissed away. Blind fools in Washington, the lot of them.

The idea is to really put North into North Atlantic (Russia is seriously North, eh?) since the most pressing geostrategic threat to the West, since the early 1990s, has been and remains China. Getting into bed with Russia serves as a step in deterrence and containment.

Self inflicted wound.

I say we embrace Russia, warts and all, and over time try to work a constructive engagement deal. Not a few Europeans agree with this, or Europeans I worked with anyway.

No one seems to be listening, in Washington.

Hello? Is there anybody in there?

DR
 
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Darth Rotor said:
I have a different take on Russia.

The US coddled all sorts of tin pot dictators of small countries for years. Coddled Musharaf when it was convenient.

But did the US do that when Russia collapsed into being the biggest third world country in the early 1990s? No. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The golden opportunity for the US and NATO to get Russia on our team came, and went. Put North into North Atlantic, since the real geostrategic threat, since the early 1990s, has been and is China.

Self inflicted wound.

I say we embrace Russia, warts and all, and over time try to work a constructive engagement deal.

No one seems to be listening.

DR
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I thought we did embrace Russia. Putin and Bush were pretty chummy earlier this decade and before that we were moderately nice to Yeltsin. Greenspan talks about going to Russia soon after their economic collapse to help them out. Things were going rather well until we started supporting things like the Orange Revolution and other democratic revolutions in the former soviet bloc.
 
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