http://www.nuncscio.com/2008/02/29/obituary-russias-democracy-17/ Politics. Media. Culture. Now you know. Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:34:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.nuncscio.com/2008/02/29/obituary-russias-democracy-17/comment-page-1/#comment-7759 Dalton48 Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:59:07 +0000 http://nuncscio.com/2008/02/29/obituary-russias-democracy-17/#comment-7759 The experiment in Communism had a much fuller and happier life than Russian democracy to date. If Russian democracy technically made it into adolescence it's been brain dead since the 2000 presidential election, when the one somewhat viable non-Communist party (Otechestvo-Vsya Rossiya, led by Moscow mayor Luzhkov and former PM Primakov) gave up before the election in the face of the popularity of Yeltsin's hand-picked successor Putin. Of course, they might have been at least allowed on the ballot if they'd pressed on... not the case now. The experiment in Communism had a much fuller and happier life than Russian democracy to date. If Russian democracy technically made it into adolescence it’s been brain dead since the 2000 presidential election, when the one somewhat viable non-Communist party (Otechestvo-Vsya Rossiya, led by Moscow mayor Luzhkov and former PM Primakov) gave up before the election in the face of the popularity of Yeltsin’s hand-picked successor Putin. Of course, they might have been at least allowed on the ballot if they’d pressed on… not the case now.

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