Yesterday, Putin's government barred Mikhail Kasyanov, one of the opposition candidates, from the upcoming Russian presidential election on the pretext that some of the signatures he had to gather to get on the ballot were forged. What's new, right? But a couple of things struck me.
First of all, I would not be at all surprised if the signatures were forged – a megalomaniac tyrant without a democratic bone in his body like Putin no doubt inspires opposition that is worthy of him. But let's be charitable and assume they were all genuine. The polls show that even if the opposition candidate was allowed to run and the election was held fairly (which it won't be), he would stand no chance of winning or even making a credible threat to Putin's anointed successor. The national television, to whose coverage he would be entitled if he ran, already excoriates him at every opportunity. Wouldn't allowing him to run provide Putin with a perfect opportunity to use him as “evidence” that Russia does in fact have a democratic process in place?
It is true that there is already a candidate in place that is serving this function – his signatures (also suspected by some of having been forged, by the way) have recently been certified as legit. You would think the more the better – if neither one is a realistic threat, why admit one and exclude the other? There is only one obvious difference – Kasyanov is perceived as being influenced by the West. So we're back to the irrational, xenophobic, jingoistic fear of the West simply because it is the West. More specifically, in classic Orwellian fashion, what Putin is afraid of is the flow of information in from the West, and anything or anyone that is perceived to be facilitating this flow will be creatively eliminated. As I said, what's new, right?
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