Why Russia Holds ‘Elections’
3rd March 2008
It’s just a sham … which reinforces the notion that Russia is just a Third Worl country with nuclear weapons.
The answer, I think, can lie only in the ruling clique’s fundamental insecurity, odd as that sounds. Though the denizens of the Kremlin do not, cannot, seriously fear Western military attack, they do still seem to fear Western-inspired popular discontent: public questioning of their personal wealth, public opposition to their power, political demonstrations of the sort that created the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. To stave off these things, they maintain the democratic rituals that give them a semblance of legitimacy.
This also gives us a good look at what Germany would be like if National Socialism had fallen from power “naturally” rather than through the country being pounded into rubble in war. Imagine Heydrich as Chancellor of a “democratic” Germany.