Putin on the Ritz

Well after reading that article, it's not hard to see why US relations with Russia would be so tense - he and Bush are very much alike. Both have a disregard for the constitution , and want to keep their hold on their position. Only difference is that Putin may actually be able to achieve his goal, whereas Jane pointed out earlier, there's no way in hell citizens in the US would stand for it. I could see Bush trying though - barricading himself in the White House, refusing to come out.

But what are we to do about it? The article talked about the US keeping a close eye on the elections to make sure everything was kosher. However, if the Russian people are really that apathetic, why should we do anything about it? Lord knows we don't need to invade another country and try to force it to our system of government.

As far as a one party system goes, well hell, why not let Putin just take over? If you've got only one major party that gets elected, and the people don't care, then how can you really change? I suppose that could be said about the US though. Yes, we have two parties, but most argue that they're not exactly dissimilar. We have other parties that try to run, and the Green party can put up a good showing, but most people don't want to vote Green because then the liberal votes are split, and someone like Bush gets elected. Ideally, we would have a 4 party system, the two moderates - Republican and Democrat, and two extremes (or, well as extreme as we can get) - Green and, I don't know, Crazy Redneck. Is there and extreme conservative party? I guess it might be the Christian Coalition.

Ahh, Putin.

We've been wondering *how* exactly he would do it, and now it seems that we know. No, Putin hasn't ammended the Russian constitution in order to allow himself to run for a third term as President. Instead, he has announced that he may very well run for Prime Minister once he is no longer President. The new President (who will most likely be whomever Putin endorses) will have the ability to allow the Prime Minister to become the de facto ruler of Russia if he so chooses. This does not surprise me in the slightest, really. Back in July, I wrote an exceptionally long piece on my blog regarding Russian political history, showing that throughout the years of its existence as a state, Russia has repeatedly reverted to an authoritarian state every chance it got. My conclusion was that an authoritarian Putin is to be expected. If you're interested, that post is here.

The article in Slate says, It's as if George W. Bush decided to step down from office, run for Congress in 2008, declare himself speaker of the House, and declare that the speaker of the House would, from then on, take over the president's responsibilities, and run the executive branch. We would call that a de facto coup d'etat. In Russia, it's constitutional politics. But Slate (and all other news agencies who have reported on this) doesn't take into account the attitude of the Russian populace. While news agencies love to focus on pro-democracy demonstrations whenever and wherever they happen inside of Russia, the fact of the matter is, they don't happen very often, and when they do, they're pretty small. From what I've experienced during my times in Russia, this isn't because the masses are worried about government retribution, it's because they simply don't care. If George W. Bush decided to pull a de facto coup d'etat, people wouldn't stand for it. We'd protest. We'd rebell. Russians on the other hand would sigh and say, Oh, that's government for you.

Just Putin Around

I'll confess to having very little knowledge of the Russian parliamentary system, but this story in the NY Times caught my eye today.

There are a few things this brings to mind:

1. What a frickin' HUGE loophole for getting around term limits! Not only can Putin retain much of his power and influence as premier, but he can also run for president again as long as someone else holds the post for the next term. And that person, the next president, seems to have been chosen (by Putin!!) simply to broadcast Putin's ideas anyway. I'm a big fan of mandatory roll-overs of power in government, so I'm having trouble seeing the benefits that this sort of set-up provides. Any one have an insight?

2. As Americans, we may be unhappy at times with both the democrats and the republicans, but at least we have (for all practical purposes) a two-party system. While flawed, that's still way more democratic than what the United Russia party's opposition leader is calling the "one-party system in Russia." In practice, how different is this than the current American system? Are there benefits to having one consistently dominant party?

3. How will Putin's hold on the Russian government affect diplomatic relations with the US? Obviously, things have been pretty tense lately, and the administration wants to blame Putin specifically for that. With him basically staying in power, will the US have to reformulate it's diplomacy strategy (I use those words loosely with this administration)?
3.a. This also brings to mind last week's debacle of miscommunicating the response to Ahmadinejad's request to lay a wreath on Ground Zero in New York. Instead of politely saying "sorry, no visitors allowed at this time," the NYPD first announced that they would have to consider it. Then, completely over-shadowing NYPD's correction, a ton of political candidates and officials condemned his request with words like "unacceptable" and "shockingly audacious." This reeks of diplomatic insensitivity to me. Laying a wreath at the site of a tragic event is exactly the right thing for visiting world leaders to do, just as our leaders should do it in other countries, no matter what these frothing-at-the-mouth media hounds think of the leader's personal values.

Just a few thoughts. And yours?

UPDATE: Here's an idea from Slate about the benefits of the Russian system... at least it's more interesting!