Russian developments

[Humus]

Is anyone else having the gut feeling that something's not quite right in Russia these days?

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/02/08/russia.election.ap/index.html

It seems democracy is slowly getting weaker and weaker. I don't trust Putin one bit. Somehow I got a feeling that he's slowly but surely trying to get absolute power and maybe even want to turn Russia back into a dictatorship. I don't know, but I don't like what I read. I have a strong feeling that the disapperance of this guy is a direct order by Putin himself. He just so happened to be a strong critic of him. Just like that oil company guy that was arrested not too long ago which created quite some fuzz.

 

[pax]

Putin isnt the best democrat out there but hes a shoe in for this years election. Hes a hard as and russians like that. I dont think theres any reason for him to undermine his popularity with ouright assassinations.

Russian politics and life is fraught with danger. The mafia still largely runs the country and investors are loath to risk themselves there. Most cies like the oil exec who was rrested didnt pay their taxes which understandably irked the central gov.

Theres a large power struggle in russia and its likely to go on for a while yet. Its potentially a very wealthy country if they can rid it of corruption...

 

[Heathen]

It's been going on for quite a while now, arrest of that OilmTycoon (what his name?) and various other infringements. He's quite good at keeping the international pr going, but once KGB always KGB.

 

[epicstruggle]

Theres a large power struggle in russia and its likely to go on for a while yet. Its potentially a very wealthy country if they can rid it of corruption...

Whats really interesting is that about a dozen families own about 80+% ov the wealth in that country. I read from a newsweek article that this is what puttin is trying to fight. Although his methods seem quite harsh.

later,
epic

 

[SvP]

I don't trust Putin one bit.

Trust to do what?

Somehow I got a feeling that he's slowly but surely trying to get absolute power and maybe even want to turn Russia back into a dictatorship.

You do guess how powerful the oligarhs are in Russia, right? Or how some governors think thet they are running a country of their own. There has to be balance in there and if dictatorship is the way to achieve that, so be it.

Anyway, what's wrong with dictatorship? If he is a bright man and can run the country and can solve the problems, I think it is better to have Putin to rule for 20 years than to elect new man every now and then. You know, for the extra stability . And I don't see any problems with any kind of "elected dictator" until he turns into another Jeltsin

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

but once KGB always KGB.

Knights of Glory and Beer?

 

[arjan de lumens]

Hmmm. Norwegian politician Ingvald Godal has some pretty nasty stuff to say about Putin:

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=726745

 

[Clashman]

Anyway, what's wrong with dictatorship? If he is a bright man and can run the country and can solve the problems, I think it is better to have Putin to rule for 20 years than to elect new man every now and then. You know, for the extra stability . And I don't see any problems with any kind of "elected dictator" until he turns into another Jeltsin

Where are you from, BTW? Just curious, as I think that argument would be a hard sell here in the U.S. I sure as hell don't buy how it can be a "good thing" to assassinate anyone who opposes you politically.

The developments in Russia are truly frightening, and not just those emanating from Putin.

 

[epicstruggle]

Anyway, what's wrong with dictatorship? If he is a bright man and can run the country and can solve the problems, I think it is better to have Putin to rule for 20 years than to elect new man every now and then. You know, for the extra stability . And I don't see any problems with any kind of "elected dictator" until he turns into another Jeltsin

Where are you from, BTW? Just curious, as I think that argument would be a hard sell here in the U.S. I sure as hell don't buy how it can be a "good thing" to assassinate anyone who opposes you politically.

The developments in Russia are truly frightening, and not just those emanating from Putin.

I dont think democracy/republic is a good form of govermnent everywhere. Look at pakistan, a pure elected govermnent would quickly have an extremist president. Whereas right now musharaf has taken over heading the country and keeping a check on the extremists. However he is slowly letting power return to parlimant.

later,
epic

 

[SvP]

I sure as hell don't buy how it can be a "good thing" to assassinate anyone who opposes you politically.

Me too, but this didn't stop Tony Blair & co, did it?
Anyway, I'll buy you a beer if Rybkin is indeed dead.

 

[Clashman]

Me too, but this didn't stop Tony Blair & co, did it?
Anyway, I'll buy you a beer if Rybkin is indeed dead.

Make it a Root Beer or Ginger Ale, (I don't drink), and you're on.

 

[Fred]

Why would Putin assassinate a man, who has ~1% poll numbers. It makes no sense, and is about as far fetched as DS's crap. If anything you would want to keep him there, to ensure no other more popular rival would emerge.

 

[Sxotty]

Nevertheless the truth is that Russia is a time bomb.

The mafia is sucking the productivity from the system, and the governement is too weak to stop it... I don't know if they will ever have what it takes to fight corruption but if they could do it they have the resources to quickly become a much better place...

 

[Geeforcer]

What motive would Putin, with his 80%+ approval rating have for this? Kremlin has been actually actively encouraging people to run against him to make the election seem more competetive and legitimate.

 

[Clashman]

What motive would Putin, with his 80%+ approval rating have for this? Kremlin has been actually actively encouraging people to run against him to make the election seem more competetive and legitimate.

A better way to seem legitimate would be for them to stop using state-run media as their pulpit and shutting down privately run media that is critical of them.

 

[kyleb]

if i recall correctly, Saddam got 100% of the votes in Iraq.

 

[akira888]

In re Tony Blair and David Kelly, wasn't that ruled a suicide by Law Lord Hutton? We had something similiar here with Clinton and a man named Vincent Foster, a lot of extreme rightwinger energy was expended to prove that Clinton murdered this guy - which like Kelly nothing was ever proven.

As for democracy in Russia, I'd actually be happy if it failed fairly soon. A nation with few traditions of civil society, widespread ethnic tensions/conflict, and an underdeveloped economic base is doomed to fail politically if it has a "democratic" political system. This has been proven all over the world, yet many simply fail to see (or wish not to see). Economic development must proceed political development, pretty much always and everywhere.

 

[L233]

I agree with akira888 to some degree. Except for those nations who have been on the winning side of the colonial coin (which includes the USA, Australia and most of Europe etc.) virtually no country has ever made any notable stride towards a modern, industrialized society without an authoritarian if not outright dictatorial regime taking matters into it's hands.

True, there have been some different approaches like in Japan (some odd half private, half socialist heavily gov regulated economy and weirdo democracy thing) but I have yet to see one example in which simply introducing democracy and free market has netted positive results. There have to be intermediate stages.

Democracy and free markets are possible results of industrial developement and not the other way round.

The three most important things are rule of law (at least regarding the business sector), internal security and political stability.

 

[DemoCoder]

virtually no country has ever made any notable stride towards a modern, industrialized society without an authoritarian if not outright dictatorial regime taking matters into it's hands.

What about India? They were on the "losing side" of the colonial coin. (oh, and Hong Kong too) I guess, you'll just claim that Britain in this case represents the "dictatorial regime taking matters into it's hands"

Athens was a democracy far longer than any modern state today, and that was a "direct democracy" without modern forms of communication, and no industry.

Democracy needs institutions, not industrialism. Respect for the rule of law and for non-violent mediation comes from your culture, not your line of work. For some countries, they had a preexisting tradition of rule of law, respect for authority, peaceful or code-bound resolution of conflict, etc. Whether it was the Church or the Emperor, there was some structure to work with. I doubt Democracy could be imposed on Aboriginals or other nomadic peoples, because very often, there aren't many legal institutions.

To some extent, the legacy of the west of the legacy of Athen's institutions, modified and imposed by the Romans on Europe (the "losing side" of the colonial empire coin)

The only thing I agree with is that rapid change is wrong. You can't convert China into a democracy overnight for example. The country has fully modernized Singapore-like areas (Shanghai, for example) where many residents earn higher salaries than Americans. But it has a huge chunk of rural peasants. China imposes internal passports, because for example, full freedom of movement would lead to a massive internal refugee flood to their urban cities. And no matter how dynamic China's fast growing overpopulated cities are, they can't absorb 100 million peasants in a short period of time. It would hurt the gains main by the minority of modernized people in these cities, who stand to lead the country in the future. And Shanghai's growth is paying for infrastructure improvements in other areas.

The US democracy was fine in 1776 when 98% of the population were rural farmers, before the industrial revolution. And don't tell me that slavery in the south totally accounts for and explains why US democracy worked, as some sort of "local colonialism".

Democracy can exist before a huge middle class or modernized industry exists.

 

[akira888]

Democoder:

India is the exception that proves the rule. Hong Kong, at most, had a funky "functional constituency" electoral system that allowed only certain people to vote, with the various constituencies not being given a strictly proportional say. As for our early history and that of classical Athenai that wasn't "true democracy" in our terms but rather a limited suffrage democracy - women, black, Indigenous peoples, non-landed whites who comprised maybe 75 percent of the population could not vote, and the Athenai democracy did not grant the ballots to the slaves and peasants who comprised a large majority of the population.