22 Nov 2009
Grasshopper vs. Sensei
by Alexander Demianchuk, Reuters. Pulled from NYTimes.com
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev criticized governing party United Russia of “backwardness” on Saturday in what is perceived as an explicit critique of his mentor, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The criticism came after the party (which elected him as well) swept regional elections amid widespread accusations of fraud and rigging.
Some regional branches of the party “show signs of this backwardness and reduce political activities to bureaucratic intrigues and games,” he said, adding, “Elections, which are intended to express the national will and present competing ideas and programs, are sometimes turned into scenarios in which democratic processes are confused with administrative ones.”
He continued, “It is necessary to get rid of such people, and of bad political habits as well.”
Wait, get rid of who exactly? The entire political system that exists today in Russia is the product of Putin’s rise to power, and it has been moving to a more authoritarian single-party structure for the last decade.
It recently came out that Russian government officials have been conferencing with Chinese Communist Party representatives to find ways to emulate China’s single-party success.
I find Medvedev’s remarks confusing more than anything, and forgive my cynicism if I’m not convinced this isn’t another “good cop, bad cop” game by Russia’s political elite to give the appearance of something other than a mostly-ineffective, unaccountable, corrupt, and conspicuously undemocratic regime.