The Dilettante abides
The Dilettante abides
Seven and a half years ago, in 2015, Stratfor released a 10-year forecast that saw Russia falling apart by 2025. When the think tank updated its forecast five years later, it no longer mentioned Russia’s disintegration. But I’ve never stopped…
Judging by reports from electoral precincts, Russia’s Communist party received more votes than the Kremlin’s own United Russia in the party-list election yesterday. Also, the Kremlin’s candidates appear to have lost in most of the first past the post (FPP)…
From CNBC’s recent Russia dispatch: Adeline Van Houtte, Europe analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, noted Wednesday that the vote will be an important test for United Russia… “United Russia is now polling at around 30%, substantially lower than in 2016. Despite…
Meduza reported from Moscow yesterday: Prosecutors have asked for a four-year prison sentence in the case of 21-year-old Egor Zhukov [or Yegor; the name is a folk version of George], a student at the Higher School of Economics… Zhukov has…
When Russia holds elections, whether national, regional or municipal, the votes are first counted at the polling stations. Each station serves a polling precinct, the minimal unit in the system so to say. Each precinct has its own electoral commission,…
At the previous election to the Moscow city council (aka the Moscow city Duma, Mosgorduma), the Kremlin’s puppet party (United Russia, UR) won 38 seats out of 45. Yesterday, UR’s candidates – all of them running as independents as the…
Putin in Helsinki, August 22, 2019: Russian opposition members were banned from running for Moscow’s legislature because they had submitted “falsified” signatures, President Vladimir Putin has said, playing down the election protests that rocked the capital this summer… “This was…
Some 20-25 thousand people took to the streets of Moscow last Saturday to protest against the city authorities’ refusal to let independent candidates run for the city council. By itself, 20-25k doesn’t seem like an impressive crowd for a city…
In order to force a Democratic primary in New York’s Congressional District 14, Alexandria Ocásio-Cortez had to gather 1,250 signatures in five weeks. On April 12, 2018, she submitted 5,480 signatures to the election authorities. That’s about 2.3% of the…
Yesterday’s protests in Moscow – against the city government’s attempts to disqualify opposition candidates from running for the Moscow City Duma in September – seem to be getting less coverage than they deserve in the media outside Russia. Of the…
Golos is a “Russian organisation established in 2000 to protect the electoral rights of citizens and to foster civil society… It is the only election watchdog active in Russia that is independent of the Russian government.” Golos volunteers have checked video…
Alexey Navalny’s team not only asked fellow Russians to boycott last Sunday’s farcical election but also invited volunteers to monitor the vote. About sixty thousand volunteered and more than 33,000 were posted at precincts across the country. Even if most…