Posted on 12/24/2018 10:53:56 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
Putin won another term in March with 77 percent of the vote, but, as in every election in the Putin era, researchers have found statistical evidence of vote rigging. Although the fraud worked for Putin, it failed to produce results in a series of gubernatorial elections this year...Voters are finding it easier to resist manipulation and cheating.
The discontent developed in large part because of Putin’s decision to raise the retirement age to 63 from 55 for women and to 65 from 60 for men, a step that successive Russian governments haven’t had the courage to take since the Soviet Union’s collapse.
The president made the change with all the accumulated skill of his 18 years in power, letting the government announce the move during the early dopamine rush of the World Cup, letting critics lay out their arguments and then making some token concessions. Still, that didn’t help: His popularity dropped sharply from the levels he had enjoyed since Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014; it hasn’t recovered.
Given Russia’s stagnant, inefficient, corruption-ridden economy and a population that’s likely to refuse to tighten belts any further, Putin can’t feel confident enough at home to take too many risks abroad.
Next year will be tough. Without the emotional highs of re-election and a major sporting event, Putin will face a hard struggle against a completely alienated West, even as he tries to maintain a foothold in the Middle East and Africa and keep finances at home stable enough to withstand shocks from sanctions and he deals with a weakening oil price.
With no spectacular achievements on the horizon, the autocrat’s fading appeal won’t be easy to restore, and factions within the regime preparing for the post-Putin era are likely to become bolder and more visible.
(Excerpt) Read more at themoscowtimes.com ...
Hell....we’re up to what...like 70?
Bad news for the resident Putinistas; McGruff, Mac_truck, (so-called) “Navy Patriot”, etc...
Communist leaders never have bad times — they need not win popularity contests like Western leaders do.
I scanned through this article and while I don’t think there is anything (too) wrong with that particular one I want to share my suspicion about Bershidsky. I think he might be one of these fake-dissident types the KGB used to send. He’ll tell the truth about Russia in low impact ways and will often critizise, but with purposely weak arguments and in times of need he’ll just deliver the full KGB written article referring to his previous reputation for credibility.
62, isn’t it now for pro-rated (from 70) SSA Benefits?
So, like pretty much EVERY election in Florida and California?
This is the product of censorship in Russia?
Russians and Americans have a lot in common... in a better world we would be friends ...
You lose about 25% of your benefit.
If Russia was serious about stealing American elections they would use the Mexican gambit.
Just move millions of your citizens here illegally and take over.
If you do it right you’ll even get bipartisan help to pull it off.
You’ll have the Bush geniuses spouting “Family Values Don’t Stop At the Volga” and the ever popular “Jobs Americans Won’t Do”.
Obama Democrats will do a 180 on Russian Collusion if you promise a return to Communism and make them think you will impose it on the USA
It’s not like the Putin elections are 51% to 49%....It’s a huge difference.
I took my $1,665 at 63.
This is the same Caca I read about Iran.
Russia and Iran are getting the Germany and Japan treatment like 1940 and 1941.
The screws are being progressively turned on countries that are weaker economically and militarily than China and North Korea and to what end?
Saudi Arabia and the USA have a lot of oil and energy out there and Russia is a competitor.
Ryan Zinke, then Interior secretary, told a group in Pittsburgh in September that the US would “blockade” Russian energy exports.
A Machiavelli could argue these nations are all being pushed into an ultimate coalition against China.
Hopefully this isn’t a war recipe.
Putin is Putin and Erdogan is Erdogan and if Trump likes Erdogan why can’t we like Putin.
If Trump can talk to Kim Jong-un in North Korea I see no reason why he can’t talk to the Iranian President Rouhani.
No one is stopping you from liking the thug assassin Putin.
That’s a bad take. It’s like saying “Hitler and Stalin did some bad things ... just like every POTUS ... so it is all the same”.
It’s a magazine closed in Russia running an internet only publication from Helsinki, Finland.
Crude oil closed at $42.50 today, down a staggering $36 in two months. If it goes to $30, Putin will be strung up like Mussolini on a Moscow street corner. Oil is ALL the failed state of Russia has left, and they are losing BILLIONS per day.
I don’t know. Putin and his kleptocrat buddies, according to some a French documentary anyways, take about 40% of the annual Russian budget. If THAT hasn’t turned the people against him will falling oil prices?
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