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The article focuses on the resurgence of the Communist Party as an opposition group in Russian politics in 2021. It mentions the preference of Russian Democrats for Communist politicians. The Communists won 19% of the vote despite the alleged election rigging in September due in part to the smart voting strategy of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Also noted is the use of the Communist Party by young politicians as a platform for their left-wing agenda.

The article focuses on the results of the Russian general election held in September 2021. Topics discussed include the victory of the political party United Russia despite polls showing a decline in its popularity to less than 30% and record low voter turnout, tactics employed by United Russia to win such as banning opposition politics, removing independent observers and creating an electronic voting platform, and alleged changes made to the publicized results to favor the party.

The article focuses on the Russian Federation's governmental structure from 1991 to 2011 and the growing cynicism of the Russian people to their government. It states that prime minister Vladimir Putin was recently booed by Russians at polling stations and during street protests concerning alleged voting irregularities in December 2011. It talks about how Putin helped rebuild Russia when he succeeded President Boris Yeltsin and mentions the slow loss of freedom under Putin's rule.

Russia's experiment with parliamentary democracy, never full-hearted, is more or less dead. The country's wellbeing now depends more than ever on Vladimir Putin. On December 7th, in the election for Russia's lower house of parliament, the Duma, had surprising results. Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his ultra-nationalist, ultra-misnamed Liberal Democrats nearly doubled their vote over the last election in 1999. Yabloko and the SPS, on the other hand, were wiped out overnight: both fell short of the 5% needed to get their party-list candidates into the Duma. The only non-surprise was that United Russia itself came first. Together with its single-mandate deputies, it has 222 seats, just shy of half the Duma. The Duma that results is a democrat's nightmare: three parties whose only ideologies are an almost slavish loyalty to President Vladimir Putin and varying degrees of nationalism, plus one made of the dregs of seven decades of totalitarian rule. Having spent his first term securing the state's finances with the help of soaring oil prices, and with his re-election next March in effect guaranteed, Putin is now ready to push reforms that will spread wealth into the rest of the economy, says Chris Weafer, the chief strategist at Alfa-Bank in Moscow. To some, all this confirms the suspicions that rather than being a flowering of democracy, the 1990s were just a momentary lapse of Russia's normal authoritarianism.

Laments that the December 1995 election in Russia for the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, probably will not result in anything positive because their are too many contenders with few competent ideas for running Russia. How the rule of law remains weak under Russian President Boris Yeltsin; The ability of Duma to be an important legislative body; Description of Russia's political order; Competition for power.

Examines what Russia's parliamentary elections in December can do to enable Russia to get to a multi-party democracy 20 years from how and what else will remain to be done. True multi-party democracy in Russia needs three things: political organizations with clear aims and popular support, constitutionally separated power between executive and legislature and elections. No democratic nation-wide political parties to hold the country together; Essential underpinnings not there; Details.

The article discusses the impact of Russian local elections on September 6, 2019 on the administration of President Vladimir Putin. The ruling party United Russia had lost many seats in the elections. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny asked his supporters to vote for whichever candidate was best placed to defeat the ruling party.

The article discusses the lack of interest by Russians in the country's parliamentary elections to be held on September 18, 2016. Topics include the influence of the parliamentary election campaigns on the Russian presidential elections in 2018, a decline in the ratings of President Vladimir Putin's United Russia ruling party leading to the 2016 elections despite the party's majority hold on the Duma, and changes to Putin's regime including the dismissal of his chief of staff.

The article discusses political and economic problems that need to be addressed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Topics explored include the accidental shooting of a Russian spy aircraft by the Syrian Air Defense Force, the political impact of the public protests launched in response to controversies surrounding the 2011 Russian elections, and the proposed increase in the state pension age.

The article examines Russia's efforts to influence elections, particularly in the U.S. Topics discussed include Russia's attempt to stop the reelection of U.S. President Ronald Reagan in November 1984, the use of disinformation by Russian President Vladimir Putin in his war against Ukraine, and Putin's allegations that the protest movements against his third presidential term in 2012 were the result of an American conspiracy.

The article focuses on the 2012 Russian presidential elections, in which former Russian President Vladimir Putin was reelected. Information is provided on the allegations of candidate preselection, vote-rigging, and falsified vote counting that marred the election. It is noted that widespread protests occurred after Putin was named the victor in the March 4 election.

The article focuses on the elections for Russia's Parliament held on December 2, 2007. The United Russia party of President Vladimir Putin won 60 percent of the vote. The voting was described as manipulated by the government, but Putin does enjoy widespread support. There is no definitive answer as to why Putin chose to step down when his term expires in April, 2008 rather than amend the Constitution. It may be a device to quell disputes between factions within his government.

The author discusses the Russian regional elections. The author talks about the political campaigns of the Just Russia party and United Russia. The author says both parties are strongly aligned with the Kremlin and with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The author says there is no political competition in Russia which is dangerous to voters.

The article discusses how Vladimir Putin's meddling in the Ukraine elections may have hurt his image, but he remains unchallenged in Russia. On the face of it, he seems humiliatingly weak. Vladimir Putin's intervention in Ukraine's election was one of his biggest mistakes as Russia's president. If Victor Yushchenko wins Ukraine's re-vote on December 26th, as seems likely, the waning of Russia's sway in its erstwhile "sphere of influence" will be embarrassingly obvious. At home, the seemingly interminable Yukos saga may be reaching its terminus. Yet the Kremlin's campaign against what was Russia's biggest oil company has been so mishandled that, even as it has dramatised Mr Putin's authority, it has also made him look amateurish and indecisive. Appearances can be misleading, however. Mr Putin's shadow post-Soviet empire may look more tenebrous than ever. Yet in Russia itself, the emperor still has clothes. The argument that Mr Putin will stay on is simple. Having accumulated power so determinedly, he and his entourage are unlikely to give it away.

This article presents news briefs from around the world on relating to politics and business. The Socialists unexpectedly won Spain's election, just three days after the train bombings in Madrid. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the new prime minister, swiftly promised to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq. Russia's voters duly re-elected Vladimir Putin as president, giving him over 70% of the vote. Pakistan's army launched an offensive against Taliban and al-Qaeda fugitives near the border with Afghanistan, a few days before America's secretary of state, Colin Powell, visited both India and Pakistan. Fears of terrorist action to disrupt supplies in the aftermath of the Madrid bombs, heavy demand from China, low stocks in America and planned quota cuts by OPEC have combined to push prices to over $38 a barrel.

The article discusses how Akhmad Kadyrov was elected president of Chechnya in a fixed election. Officially, Mr Kadyrov won 81% of the votes on October 5th, on a turnout of 88%. In fact, the election was so plainly fixed as to be farcical, were the outcome not so tragic for Chechens. Mr Kadyrov is a former mufti of Chechnya and one-time ally of separatist rebels with whom Russian forces have fought two wars since 1994. In his time as Moscow-appointed administrator he has built up his own ragtag private army, made up of former rebels, ex-policemen and soldiers. In the run-up to the election, Mr Kadyrov's opponents were frequent targets of unexplained violence. Among them were the head of a small village who had spoken out against vote-rigging; two workers for an opposition candidate, Malik Saidullayev; and the son of another, murdered on September 9th as he drove into Grozny, the capital. The Kremlin was determined that Mr Kadyrov would win. Russians' war-weariness over the fighting in Chechnya helped to propel Vladimir Putin into the Russian presidency in 2000; he will not let the place threaten his re-election in March. In Chechnya itself, government workers tell of being ordered to vote for Mr Kadyrov or lose their jobs.

The author comments on how George Bush described Russia as a democracy when its president, Vladimir Putin, visited Camp David two weeks ago. As two elections this week have confirmed, Russian democracy is a cynical joke. In Chechnya, serious challengers to the Kremlin's preferred candidate, Akhmad Kadyrov, were encouraged or forced out of the race; voters and electoral officials were bribed or threatened; opposition supporters were intimidated and sometimes even killed; and, just to make sure, the vote itself was a fraud of a kind befitting an African dictatorship. Meanwhile, Valentina Matvienko won the governorship of St Petersburg after an election campaign that was wholly biased in her favour. Mr Putin himself publicly endorsed her, a breach of election law that the head of the federal elections commission blamed on the media--after all, they had reported his remarks. The prosecutors' attacks on Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man, that began this summer have made one thing clear: in Russia, the rule of law is that those who rule are the law. There is, of course, another picture of Russia, one painted by the investors flooding in at a rate not seen since its economic collapse five years ago. To thrive in the long term, Russia will have to be democratic, but for now this is the best one can expect. But if western leaders can ignore such issues as Chechnya and accept that Russia is not a democracy, they should at least stop pretending that it is.

The article focuses on political campaigns for the elections in December 2003 in Russia citing the activities of the Party of Rus and the Unity Conceptual Party. Results of public opinion polls have revealed the preference for Communist candidates and a decline in the popularity of the main pro-Kremlin coalition, United Russia.

Two explosions, one real and the other political, have kicked off Russia's election season. The real one, a suicide-bomb attack by Chechen rebels at a rock concert in Moscow on July 5th, killed at least 16 people. A wave of such attacks in the run-up to next March's presidential election will remind Russians of Vladimir Putin's failure to end the conflict in the breakaway republic, nearly four years after they elected him on his promise to do so. The political bomb, the arrest of a top businessman, was probably a bigger shock to foreign investors than to ordinary Russians. It too marks the start of an electoral campaign. Platon Lebedev, a key shareholder in Yukos, Russia's biggest oil producer, was arrested on July 2nd, accused of illegally acquiring shares in a fertiliser company in 1994. Just days before Lebedev's arrest, another of them, Vladimir Potanin of the Interros group, made a public show of contrition for past excesses and of fealty to United Russia, the coalition in the Duma that backs the Kremlin.

Reports results of December 1999 parliamentary elections in Russia. Number of Duma seats won by the new pro-government Unity party, Union of Right-Wing Forces, Communist Party and Fatherland-All Russia Party; Scheduled meeting of the Duma; Outlook for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's relations with the Duma; Outlook for summer 2000 presidential elections; Continued Russian assaults in Chechnya.

Discusses the results of the December 1999 elections for the Duma, the lower house of the parliament in Russia. Details of the election, including the inability of the Communist Party to gain more than a quarter of the vote; Other political parties and their showing in the election, including the Unity Party and the Union of Right-Wing Forces Party; Effect of the election on Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Boris Yeltsin; Effect of Russian war in Chechnya on election results.

Discusses the Fatherland-All Russia political party in Russia and its popularity as of 1999. Party composed of Yevgeny Primakov, Yuri Luzhkov, Alexander Yakovlev and Mintimir Shamiev, and others; Various political successes of the above politicians; Downturn in their popularity as a result of negative coverage by the media controlled by the Kremlin; Attacks claiming Luzhkov's involvement in the death of an American businessman; Outlook for Fatherland's performance in 1999 elections in Russia.

Discusses the political conditions in Russia as of November 1999. Possible conflict between the Russian military and politicians over the war in Chechnya; Rumors that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will be replaced; Effect of Putin's popularity on general elections in December and presidential elections in June 2000; Possibility of a Putin presidency; Other candidates for the job.

Discusses Russia's bombing of Chechnya and the political effect of the campaign. Reasons for the campaign, including the explosion of terrorist bombs in Russia; Campaigning by Russian President Boris Yeltsin et al; Effect of the money-laundering investigation in the United States and Russia; Outlook on the parliament after the election.

Discusses the relationship between Russia and Chechnya, and the effect on the relationship played by the invasion of Dagestan by Islamist separatists. Details of the conflict; Claims from Moscow that the conflict is being funded from outside Russia; Chechnya's claims to independence from Moscow; Political ramifications of an extended conflict, including a delay of the parliamentary elections scheduled for December 19, 1999.

Claims that the election this month of Boris Yeltsin as president of Russia has set in motion a series of events which, if all goes well, will transform the Soviet Union. Plans to draw up union treaty; Need for a new parliament; Soviet Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov; Eventual direct election of Soviet presidency; Position of President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Opinion. Suggests that there will not be a full-scale reversal of reform even if Communist Party candidates do well in Russia's general election on December 17, 1995. Possibility of political drift and uncertainty; Depiction of legislative rules in the Russian parliament; Role of parliament in Russia's progress towards democracy and free markets.

Focuses on some sentiments in Russia which suggest that communists will do well in parliamentary elections in 1995 and that these communists, compared with those in Poland and Hungary, are relatively unreformed. The 1995 May Day celebrations; Criticisms of Gennady Zyuganov from some communists.

Describes current political developments in Russia. Thoughts about the outcome of pending national elections; Actions of Russian President Boris Yeltsin; Why Russian interests are not likely to be identical with those of the West; Hopes for a stable and democratic Russia.

Speculates that most of the activity among Russia's political parties during the runup to the December 12, 1993 parliamentary election appears to come from supporters of reform. Russia's Choice held a congress to pick candidates over October 16-17; Yegor Gaidar the party's top candidate; Alternative parties the Party of Russian Unity and Concord, the Republican Party, the Movement for Democratic Reform; Rivals in disarray; Anti-reform parties; Details.

Examines the political implications of Boris Yeltsin's victory after the fighting in Moscow. Biggest political price is the debt to Yeltsin owes to the army; Need to hold elections at four levels; Possibility that the battle for Moscow may have changed the balance of power between the central and regional governments; Yeltsin's address of October 6, 1993; Details.

The article discusses the future of government reforms in Russia. President Boris Yeltsin had been expected to win the referendum, but not resoundingly. His opponents, and even his own prime minister, had thought the majority of voters would support the president but vote against his economic policies. The voters turned out to be more sophisticated than that, realizing that the man is inseparable from his policies. Instead of proclaiming victory, Yeltsin kept quiet after the referendum and called an expanded meeting of his cabinet for April 29, 1993. At this meeting he presented the draft of a new constitution, which he wants to be adopted by a constituent assembly in June.

The article looks at Russia as of September 2013. Topics include the support for opposition candidate Alexei Navalny in the Moscow mayoral election, the unexpectedly small margin of votes that allowed incumbent mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who has the support of the Russian federal government, to win, and the faith Russian politicians put in polling data, which is not always as accurate as they believe it is.

The article focuses on the United Russia Party, the ruling political party in Russia led by President Vladimir Putin. Topics include voter fraud in the 2011 Duma election, the number of protesters that oppose the party's tactics, and opposition leader Vladimir Milov's calls for more transparency in Russian elections.

The article focuses on the protests occurring in Russia in 2012. Information is provided on how Russians have been protesting managed democracy and former Russian President Vladimir Putin's attempts to return to the presidency. The author warns against any U.S. intervention in Russian affairs and discusses why it is important for Russian citizens to implement the changes in their own government.

The article discusses the presidential and parliamentary elections of Russia in 2011. Topics include the efforts of the United Russia political party to win the elections, the political corruption to stop the campaign of Mikhail Prokhorov, a leader of the Right Cause party, and the political power of Vladislav Surkov, a Russian politician, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The article examines elections for regional governments in Russia held March 13, 2011. The relatively poor performance of the ruling United Russia party is considered. The eight percent of the total vote won by Patriots of Russia, a party largely unknown prior to these elections, is discussed. It is noted Patriots of Russia has largely the same platform as United Russia. The possibility the party was created by the government to take votes from genuine opposition parties is considered.

The article focuses on Russia's presidential election. President Vladimir Putin has appointed a radically restructured new government, which suggests that he will push hard in his second term for reforms that were stalled in the first. Putin's campaign is helped by pliant state-owned television networks, which feature the president heavily in newscasts and aired his entire speech to campaign workers. The only risk for the president is that, with the election not only predictable but irrelevant, not enough people will vote. The turnout could then fall below the 50% legal minimum, which would mean a fresh election with new candidates. Assuming that he wins, buys or steals enough votes to get past the 50% threshold, Putin will be ready to forge ahead. His new government has investors and economists excited. But the whole system retains two glaring weaknesses. The first lies in the difference between legislation and implementation. The second drawback is that there are no counterweights to the president's power. Bad laws can get through as easily as good ones; if they do, there will be little protest either in parliament or, given the Kremlin's control of the media, in public.

This article focuses on the deteriorating relationship between Russian president Vladimir Putin and leaders of Western nations. This weekend Vladimir Putin seems sure to be re-elected Russia's president by a landslide, not least because he has trampled down what feeble opposition there is. His second term has, in effect, already begun. But in the West, his erstwhile friends are turning more distant. A year ago, the world's leaders were courting Mr Putin to support or oppose the war on Iraq. Last September America's George Bush, no less, fulsomely praised Russia's democracy and its respect for the rule of law. In November it was the turn of Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, presiding over a European Union-Russia summit, who spoke up for Mr Putin when journalists posed questions about the same issues. But by January the American secretary of state, Colin Powell, was berating the Russians for abusing these virtues. Last month the European Commission issued a stinging report on the breakdown of the bilateral relationship, with harsh words for the Russian side. Last December's parliamentary election delivered near-total control of the Duma and its committees to the pro-Putin United Russia party. Investigations and arrests of business magnates who have meddled in politics have shown that the rule of law tends to apply only when it suits the state.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's dismissal of Mikhail Kasyanov, and his entire government, this week was far from routine. Russia is, of course, far from being either normal or democratic. It has long been a certainty that Putin would win re-election by a landslide. Largely because he has presided over a period of relative stability and economic growth, he remains hugely popular with Russian voters. Putin was within his constitutional rights to dismiss the government, even if the timing was surprising. His dissatisfaction with Kasyanov, the last big holdover from the Yeltsin era, had long been rumoured. Kasyanov's dismissal reflects the outcome of the power struggle inside the Kremlin that has been going on since the attack on Yukos began last summer, if not before. His departure marks the triumph, at least for now, of the anti-oligarch, former security-service camp around Putin. The question is how much further a re-elected Putin may move in the direction of autocracy.

This article reports on the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the boss of Russia's biggest oil firm, Yukos, in October after a four-month-long series of probes into his firm and associates. Other Russian business magnates prudently kept their mouths shut or muttered vaguely that it did not affect them. Mr Khodorkovsky's experience suggests that Anatoly Chubais might be unwise to become the mouthpiece of a cowed but angry business community. But many fear that the move against Yukos marks the start of either a more interventionist industrial policy or, worse still, an attempt by a few high-placed government officials to grab assets for themselves. After his election as president in 2000, Vladimir Putin had struck a deal with the oligarchs whereby, if they stayed away from politics, they would be allowed to keep the enormous wealth they had secured during the corrupt privatisations of the 1990s--many of which were overseen by a then Deputy Prime Minister Chubais. Mr Chubais is running in this Sunday's elections to the Duma, the lower house of parliament, for the Union of Right Forces (SPS), a pro-business party that he co-founded. If Mr Chubais is to keep his job, it will be because he is more useful than threatening to Mr Putin--and to other senior Kremlin officials who do not always do Mr Putin's bidding.

They live in rows of tents, in abandoned barns, in the houses of local families paid to take them in; they sit and wait out their days or look for work nearby or make the perilous journey back and forth to their old homes. But among all those who have fled the fighting in Chechnya, the refrain is the same: "We just want to live like normal people," says Azamat, a 21-year-old at the Sputnik camp, home to over 6,000 people, near Ingushetia's border with Chechnya. Some have returned to Chechnya only to go into camps there. Families are fragmented, the future unknown. Aid workers have been bracing for a new influx, fearing a wave of repression after Chechen rebels took a Moscow theater and its audience hostage in October 2002. There are a few ominous signs. Refugees and foreign aid workers who have been to Chechnya recently say it has not much changed. The army seems to be obeying Russian President Vladimir Putin's instructions to exercise restraint. Putin seems to be using the hostage crisis to get more direct control in Chechnya--but not through force. In 2003 there will be a referendum to adopt a constitution that will reiterate that Chechnya is part of Russia, formally negating its self-declared independence a decade ago. A few months later there will be a presidential election. If Putin's project promises some kind of return to normality, the Chechens--at least those who have known the refugee's life--may take what is on offer.

Presents information on Russia's second post-communist election and the prospects for reform. Discussion on the results of the election; Information that Communists have a much larger share of parliamentary seats than they now have in Russia; Prospects for reform in Russia; Report that the past four years have seen a mass privatization programme put around 60% of the economy into private hands.

Looks at political events in Russia in July 1995 and asserts that the country is sliding toward full-scale electioneering. Thoughts about what might happen if Boris Yeltsin's government were to lose a no-confidence vote in the Duma on July 1; Russia's long election season; Possible fate of Viktor Yerin and Nikolai Yegorov; Viktor Chernomyrdin; Chechnya; Other issues.

The article focuses on a meeting of some of the powerbrokers of Russian Federation in Moscow, where they proceeded to establish a new political party. On paper the new party, with parliamentary elections due in December 1995, is better placed than any other to offer continuity. It is supported by 40 members of the government, many leading banks and companies, and representatives from the local governments of 80 regions. The new party lacks many things, most obviously a charismatic leader. The problem for voters who like reform is the lack of alternatives.

Presents information on the collapse of the Russian currency, Rouble. Criticism of how the Russian government has reacted to the currency crisis; Effect of budget deficit on macroeconomic stability; Report that cutting subsidies to bankrupt farms and businesses will drive up unemployment; Information on Parliamentary elections that are supposed to be held at the end of 1995.