Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

To no one's surprise

Election results are in from Russia.(Under the 1993 version of the Russian constitution, none of these elections would have counted. Originally, the constitution required 50%+ of eligible voters to participate to be valid.)

Putin’s Party Dominates Russian Regional Elections

Candidates from the pro-Kremlin party United Russia won nearly all of the municipal and regional elections held across the country, according to results released on Monday, though analysts said the party’s success owed much to low voter turnout…

Voter turnout in most regions was around 25 percent. A reporter for Komsomolskaya Pravda, a generally pro-government tabloid, spent all day at a polling place in the city of Voskresensk and described a quietness that verged on stagnation…

“People are reconciled to the fact that politics does not matter,” said Masha Lipman, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. This had traditionally been true until the fall of last year, when young urbanites abruptly mobilized — but that civic awakening has ended, she said, and it is not clear what comes next.

“If we describe it as mass political rallies, of rejoicing people who suddenly realized that they are many and can make some difference — yes, it is over,” she said. “The pervasive sense is of disillusionment.”

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The First Edition of What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools is now available from the publisher

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

Labels: elections, parties, politics, Russia