New Protests Mount in Russia as Kremlin Moves to Fix Vote

Tensions are rising in Russia as it moves towards the March 4th presidential election. As the pro-democracy movement is rising, so is its opposition. With only 36% of support in the election polls, Vladimir Putin is beginning to realize that he might actually lose the election. However, he is willing to do whatever it takes to become president again, including rigging the elections. Putin's biggest opponent, liberally minded Grigory Yavlinsky, has recently been disqualified. The basis for his disqualification was that a quarter of the signatures he gathered for his nomination were "defective." Now that Yavlinsky is out of the way, Putin can focus more on cheating his way to the presidency. Voter turnout is likely to decrease now that Yavlinsky is off the ballot, giving Putin a larger percentage of the votes necessary to win. Also, during Yavlinksy's campaign, he promised to enlist 90,000 "election monitors" that would attempt to prevent fraud at the polls. With Yavlinsky and his monitors no longer a problem, there is virtually nothing standing in Putin's way. Except for the Russian people. Tens of thousands of people are expected to rally and protest outside the capital in Moscow on February 4th. The protest is supposed to be a pro-democracy rally and demonstration of the public's anger towards corruption in the government.

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/vladimir-kara-murza/new-protests-mount-russia-kremlin-moves-fix-vote

Rachel Foy