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Putin’s Opponent Barred From Upcoming Presidential Election
From Washington Post:
Former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, a political opponent of President Vladimir Putin, was barred Sunday from running for president after the Central Election Commission said it had found tens of thousands of forged signatures among the 2 million gathered by his campaign to get his name on the ballot.
Opinion polls indicated that Kasyanov posed no political threat to Putin’s chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev, the overwhelming favorite in the March 2 vote, and his disqualification will immediately raise questions about the Kremlin’s willingness to face any competition or debate. As a candidate, Kasyanov would have enjoyed some access to state-controlled national television stations, which rarely mention him and then only to attack him as corrupt or declare him irrelevant.
Kasyanov alleged that the commission’s decision was “made personally by Vladimir Putin,” who fired him in 2004.
During Stalin’s reign if you did something the Kremlin didn’t like you would have immediately been arrested and sent to the gulags and likely killed.
In the Russia of 2008 it’s a different kind of tyranny. Putin uses the legal system to bring down opponents through a Kangaroo court system and completely fictitious cases.
-Chris Jones
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