| inbluevt | Date: Wednesday, 2013/09/11, 11:35 PM | Message # 1 | DMCA |
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The success of anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny in the Moscow mayoral election may have ushered in a new era. Could Russia's rigid party system finally be forced to make room for real political opposition?
Alexei Navalny's voice is calm but combative as he speaks from the stage. Inspired by the robust 27 percent that voted for him the day before in the Moscow mayoral elections, he is at his rhetorical best. "Russia deserves a real and strong opposition! That is us," Navalny
cries out. He is now the uncontested leader of Kremlin opponents, even if Mayor Sergei Sobyanin will remain in office after officially receiving 51 percent of the vote. Navalny raises his fist: "We are the power!" he cries. The masses join him in celebration.
Navalny drew more than 10,000 supporters on this Monday night within sight of the Kremlin on Bolotnaya Square, the place where the protest movement began almost two years ago. During parliamentary elections in December 2011, the Kremlin had clearly engaged in widespread electoral fraud in order to secure the desired results for President Vladimir Putin's ruling party, United Russia.
Back then, 100,000 people protested. This time the amount is significantly smaller -- and that's probably a good sign for the democratic awakening in Putin's Russia. "Everyone predicted barely 20 percent for Navalny and prepared ourselves to take to the streets if it was significantly less," explains the Moscow political analyst Alexei Markarkin. "Now it is nearly 30 percent. What is there to demonstrate
about?
More
Though he didn't win the election, opposition blogger Alexei Navalny was successful in the Moscow mayoral election. He received 27 percent of the vote, far more than expected
Russian President Vladimir Putin had hoped that Navalny would be humiliated in the Moscow mayoral election. Instead, he presided over the
birth of a new opposition movement in Russia
Message edited by inbluevt - Wednesday, 2013/09/11, 11:38 PM |
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