Teaching Comparative

Encouraging Apathy or Competition?

Things like this would seem to promote the political apathy noted earlier.

From the Washington Post:

Opposition Party Looks To Be a Putin Creation

"The powerful and pro-Kremlin United Russia party has a new opponent -- one, however, that bears all the marks of a Kremlin creation.

"The leaders of three small Russian parties... announced a merger Tuesday. The union followed a series of meetings between the leaders and President Vladimir Putin, who blessed a venture that appears designed to leave him with loyalists on both sides of the Russian political aisle...

"The new party, which will have 30 seats in parliament and says it wants to become the country's largest opposition group after elections in 2007, also swears fealty to the president...

"The Kremlin hopes the new party, which has yet to be named, will form the basis of a nominally two-party system in parliament, analysts said. It will give voters an alternative to United Russia and siphon off votes from the Communist Party and others while remaining subservient to the presidential administration, analysts said...

"Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has had a string of fake opposition parties, manufactured to create the pretense of political competition. On Tuesday, critics immediately labeled the new party a rehash of earlier efforts...

"At their news conference Tuesday, party leaders dismissed the charge that they were puppets of the president. 'The easiest form of discrediting any organization today is saying that it is the Kremlin's project,' Babakov said. 'Our decision is not just a decision by leaders of our parties. It is a decision by our regional branches, party members. Believe me, all those people are very far away from the Kremlin.'"

posted by Ken Wedding @ 9:16 AM