Mark MacKinnon's blog: Election Day

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Election Day

The polls are now open in the Duma elections.

I've got 50 rubles on United Russia. Any takers?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...: 100 rubles says they hit 80 percent!; December 2, 2007 at 8:17 p.m.
Anonymous said...: Hello there. Kudos on the book. Nice breakdown. What are you up to these days and where are you based? I'd like to chat sometime.

Saludos, Mig Greengard

Editor, theotherrussia.org
mgreengard@theotherrussia.org; December 3, 2007 at 12:46 p.m.
Michael Averko said...: This morning’s, NBC cable affiliate MSNBC portrayed a questionable result based on the stated impression of an over 60% Putin tally being overwhelming by Western standards.

In Georgia, where was the second guessing when Saakashvili received a 96% presidential vote tally? Likewise with Shevardnadze’s 92% win, when he was in the good graces of Soros and the neocons?

On the mentioned morning segment, NBC’s Jim Maceda said that the Russian political opposition believes the claimed rigging could’ve actually meant Putin receiving a vote in the low 50% range. Rather than note the lack of outrage in Russia with the result, Maceda uncritically quoted Russian opposition leaders saying that they could’ve won. He mentioned an Igor “Lavitsky” (last name spelled as it sounded) as one of the opposition leaders. I gather he meant Grigori Yavlinsky. Such is the level of knowledge of some of the non-Russian English language mass media reporters in Moscow.

This morning’s televised BBC feed to America showed a small gathering of Nashi supporters outside the BBC’s Moscow office. The impression was given that they served to intimidate opposition figures from going to the BBC. Yet, that same segment showed a Western observer criticize the Russian election on an unnamed Russian radio station (probably Ekho Moskvy, which is owned by the “Russian state giant” Gazprom). Russians are free to travel and have access to other views from United Russia. There isn’t a great “outrage” among Russians on the election. As one Russian in the BBC segment said, there’s a “zombifaction” of Russian society on political issues. Sounds like my own country of origin.

On the matter of elections, it was reported that the Venezuelan president didn’t get enough votes to have a prolonged stay in office, well past five years. No applause for Venezuela conducting a “free and fair election,” despite the result being the one preferred by the American foreign policy establishment at large.

This leads to the view that some in the world don’t seek to please Uncle Sam on account that official Washington will not offer much in terms of a positive feedback. I suspect that Russia falls into that category.; December 3, 2007 at 3:47 p.m.
Michael Averko said...: As per my last post at his thread, that’s “zombification.”; December 3, 2007 at 4:05 p.m.
markmac said...: You raise a good point, tture. I should have set an over-under line.

Gotta remember to do that for the presidential vote...; December 3, 2007 at 4:58 p.m.