Parliamentary elections were held in Russia at the weekend. The ruling United Russia party emerged victorious over key rivals including pro-western parties.
Russians once again showed that they remain opposed to their country’s political or economic shift toward Europe or the Atlantic. Come November and the next elections will further reinforce nationalist tendencies and growing opposition to western ways.
Results of the elections suggest Russians are still in favor of President Vladimir Putin and his domestic and foreign policies. Many political observers maintain the vote was indeed a referendum on the no-nonsense Kremlin leader.
United Russia won more than 60 percent of Duma seats thanks to Putin’s performance and popularity at the grassroots level. To many the foregone conclusion is that Sunday’s vote laid the foundations for his coming role as prime minister.
In rather simple terms the parliamentary elections also let it be known that pro-western parities and their backers are not popular among the Russian electorate.
Despite enjoying western political support and funding for their election campaigns, pro-western groups could only garner seven percent of the vote, and have accused Untied Russia of rigging the elections.
Reports had it that the opposition parties complained both before and after the voting that the government deprived them of stifling their campaigns and depriving them of the equal opportunity to get the message across.
History of this important country has it that Russians in no small numbers remain highly pessimistic toward the West and its ways.
The eight-year rule of the former pro-western president Boris Yeltsin helped his people to better understand that western powers pushing hard for their peculiar brands of freedom and democracy in Russia were covertly trying to undermine their relative political and economic stability.
With a lot at stake, “Putinism“ is now seen as the response to the valid concerns the people of Russia had had about the future direction of their country after Putin leaves the presidency.
It can be fairly said that Putin has been one of the most successful rulers in the vast country’s contemporary history.
Almost three decades before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russians were grappling with political tyranny, a sick national economy and costly international adventurism of which there was no shortage. The so-called Cold War dragged on for decades to the visible detriment of the former USSR.
When Mikhail Gorbachev ruled in the Kremlin, Russians faced a collection of socio-political challenges and changes that culminated in a diminishing role for the then superpower in the international arena.
Those tough times were proceeded with the controversial Yeltsin’s presidency which produced more than its fair share of economic misery, financial corruption, political instability and finally, the war in Chechnya.
Not only did Putin save his people and country from total economic collapse, he also went an extra mile to restore and rehabilitate Russia’s international credibility.
Russia continues to face grave challenges that many from the pro-western opposition ranks blame on the president and his high-handed policies. But amid all this, it is certain that Putin’s authoritarian rule and his autocracy produced political stability and economic prosperity--a reality even Putin’s opponents almost admit without much fuss.