Re: the bottom line on the Russian elections

The fourth-place "gaggle of neo-Yeltsinists, free-marketers and
undefined liberals" include the principled and generally decent
Yabloko party who unfortunately received the official support of about
1.5% of the electorate and whose voice is now snuffed out
politically. While Russia is not nor should be a Western-style
democracy (its a different culture, and experimenting with trying to
create such a system in the 1990's was a disaster) it does
historically have a Western face also, albeit not the dominant one.
The new Russian parliament will now not have a single Western-style
democrat in it. I wonder what the opposite imbalance from the 1990's
will mean.

regards,

BM

On Dec 5, 10:59 pm, Eugene Holman <hol...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Who in this group would have preferred to see:
a. the second-place communists (CPRF) win the elections;
b. the third-place ultra-nationalists (LDPR) win the elections;
c. the fourth-place gaggle of neo-Yeltsinists, free-marketers, and
undefined "liberals" win the elections?

Isn't one of the tasks of democracy, particularly in its nascent stages
in countries with long undemocratic pasts, to erect barriers that would
make it virtually impossible for extremist groups to gain access to the
levers of power?

Regards,
Eugene Holman

.