Vladimir Putin wins Russia election amid fraud charges

Daily News Article   —   Posted on March 6, 2012

(By Douglas Feiden, NYDailyNews.com) – Czar-in-the-making Vladimir Putin will keep his stranglehold on the Kremlin for another six years.

The 59-year-old autocrat was elected president of Russia on Sunday in an election that observers charge was riddled with fraud, intimidation and ballot-box stuffing.

Putin coasted to victory with a margin of about 64% — but a torrent of alleged election violations, as many as 5,000, swiftly raised doubts about the legitimacy of his mandate.

Amid mounting outrage, [an enormous] opposition rally was planned for Monday [March 5].

The iron man — who likes to pose bare-chested and next to Siberian tigers he’s shot – showed his softer side as tears streamed down his face in an emotional victory rally. “Glory to Russia!” he declared. He later blamed the tears on the cold wind.

With an increasingly heavy hand, Putin has already run the country for 12 years, first as president and now as prime minister. His latest triumph marks a return…as president.

[Calling opponents] naysayers and sore losers, Putin sounded a jingoistic theme in his victory speech, thanking his supporters for foiling unnamed “outsiders” and “usurpers” in their unspecified plots to topple the Russian state.

“I have promised that we would win — and we have won!” he declared to a flag-waving crowd. “We have won in an open and honest struggle.”

Stretching credulity even further, his campaign manager Stanislav Govorukhin boasted that the world had witnessed one of the “cleanest elections in the entire history of Russia.”

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last head of state of the Soviet Union [before it collapsed], who has become increasingly critical of Putinism, sharply differed.

“These are not going to be honest elections,” he said after casting his vote. “But we must not relent.”

Charging the Kremlin had blatantly rigged the results, angry opposition leaders immediately geared up for a massive rally in downtown Moscow.

Independent election watchdogs – permitted by the Putinites [supporters of Putin] after widespread fraud in parliamentary elections three months ago – cited a uniquely Russian type of voter fraud, known as “carousel voting.”

The practice involves busloads of voters driven to multiple polling places in caravans to cast their ballots multiple times, according to Golos, Russia’s leading elections monitor.

In another abuse, independent observers monitoring a web camera at a remote polling station in the Caucasus Mountains spotted a large group of people stuffing fistfuls of ballots into ballot boxes.

Acting only after the images went viral on the Internet, the Russian Central Election Commission decreed those results would be tossed out.

dfeiden@nydailynews.com 

Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from he New York Daily News.

Background

Vladimir Putin:

• Vladimir Putin (born in 1952) was the second president of Russia.
• Putin was an officer in the KGB (Russian secret police) from 1975-1992.
• Putin became acting president on December 31, 1999, when President Boris Yeltsin resigned.
• Putin won the 2000 presidential election and in 2004 he was re-elected for a second term lasting until May 7, 2008.
• Due to constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term.
• After the victory of his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, in the 2008 presidential elections, he was nominated by the latter to be Russia's Prime Minister; Putin took the post on May 8, 2008. (from wikipedia)

THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT:

• In the Russian political system established by the 1993 constitution, the president wields considerable executive power.
• There is no vice president, and the legislative branch is far weaker than the executive.
• The bicameral legislature consists of the lower house (State Duma) and the upper house (the Federation Council).
• The president nominates the highest state officials, including the prime minister, who must be approved by the Duma.
• The president can pass decrees without consent from the Duma.
• He also is head of the armed forces and of the Security Council. (from state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3183.htm#gov)

Russian National Elections:

• From the Duma [legislature] elections held on December 2, 2007, and presidential elections on March 2, 2008, [Putin's] party United Russia won a constitutional majority (more than two-thirds) of the seats in the Duma.
• [Election monitors] who observed the elections concluded that they were "not fair and failed to meet many [international] commitments and standards for democratic elections."  They noted that the elections took place in an atmosphere which seriously limited political competition.
• Frequent abuses of administrative resources, media coverage strongly in favor of Putin's United Russia party, and the revised election code combined to [block members of any other political parties from winning elections].
• Dmitriy Medvedev, running as United Russia's candidate, was elected to a 4-year term as President on March 2, 2008, with 70.28% of the vote.
• The Russian constitution does not allow presidents to serve more than two consecutive terms.
• A December 2008 law extended the terms of Duma deputies from 4 to 5 years and presidential terms from 4 to 6 years.
• The new terms took effect with the most recent elections, which for the Duma were December 4, 2011 and for president March 2012.
  (from state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3183.htm#gov)

On the December 2011 Duma elections:

• United Russia, chaired by Prime Minister Putin, is Russia's ruling party and has dominated national and regional legislatures for almost a decade.
• Before the Dec. 4 election, the party controlled 315 of the 450 seats in the Duma, which gave it the two-thirds majority it needed to pass changes to the Russian constitution if required.
• United Russia is unflinching in its support of the Kremlin, and of Mr. Putin personally.
• Prime Minister Putin accepted the party's nomination to run for president in the March 2012 elections, while the current president, Dmitry Medvedev, agreed to be the party's top parliamentary candidate [candidate for Prime Minister].
• Mr. Medvedev is expected to take over as prime minister after the presidential election in March 2012, in what is effectively a job swap with Mr Putin. (from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15939801)
• On Dec. 11, 2011, President Medvedev ordered an investigation into the allegations of electoral fraud during last week's parliamentary vote. The announcement came a day after tens of thousands of people rallied in Moscow and other cities to demand the December 4 election won by Prime Minister Putin's ruling United Russia party be annulled and rerun.

President vs. Prime Minister in Russia: (from differencebetween.net)

• The President of Russia holds the highest political office in the government while the Prime Minister holds the second highest office.
• The President is elected by the Russian people while the Prime Minister is appointed by the President just like other applicable offices in the government.
• The President is both the Head of the State and the government. The Prime Minister is a co-head of the government but not of the State.
• The President has a central role in the Russian political system while the Prime Minister acts only as a chief administrator of the government.