Waning public support for Putin regime is reflected in lack of enthusiasm for Russia’s show elections

Russia’s ruling party United Russia won a record high number of seats in the Russian parliament in an election with the lowest turnout in the country’s post-Soviet history. While Sunday’s vote showed some signs of hope for the Russian opposition to finally break into parliament’s lower house, the State Duma, the exit polls indicated a decisive…

“You know, comrades,” Joseph Stalin is famously quoted as saying, “to me it is highly irrelevant how the party votes. What is of the utmost importance is who counts the votes and how they go about it.” The Soviet leader’s adage, as noted by Stalin’s secretary Boris Bazhanov after his death, is one he lived by,…