Category Archives: Elections

Russia’s options in Belarus

Posted on August 15, 2020 by

“I need to contact Putin,” said Alexander Lukashenko, “Belarus’s former president” – as Lithuania’s minister of foreign affairs called him recently – after almost a week of unrelenting and ever-growing protests and strikes against the falsification of a presidential election … Continue reading →

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Elections that matter

Posted on August 6, 2020 by

Elections, however rigged and manipulated, have been an important source of legitimacy for the political system that Vladimir Putin created. Elections provide the procedural background to electing the docile legislatures on which to pass laws. For Putin they provide an … Continue reading →

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NY Dispatches: the arrest of Sergey Furgal

Posted on July 11, 2020 by

On Thursday, 9 July the agents of the Investigative Committee, working together with the Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested the governor of the far eastern Khabarovsk Krai, Sergey Furgal, a former Duma deputy and member of the Liberal Democratic Party … Continue reading →

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A show of force

Posted on July 3, 2020 by

According to the official results 78 percent of the 67 percent of Russian citizens who voted in a plebiscite on Vladimir Putin’s constitutional reform – or just over 50 percent of all voters – supported the reform, which will enter … Continue reading →

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NY Dispatches: Putin’s pitch

Posted on June 26, 2020 by

As voting commences in Russia’s plebiscite on Vladimir Putin’s constitutional reform the president is making his safest pitch to voters. But Putin cannot avoid making the vote about himself and people whose cooperation he needs to keep governing will know … Continue reading →

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Of tragedies and farces

Posted on June 13, 2020 by

Russia will hold military parades across the country to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory in the Second World War, on 24 June. Following the parade (officially on 1 July, but with voting stretched out over a … Continue reading →

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NY Dispatches: the newfound assertiveness of regional leaders

Posted on June 2, 2020 by

The former head of the Republic of Chuvashia is suing Putin over his dismissal. This might seem outlandish but, along with other recent developments, it highlights a very real disturbance in Moscow’s relationship with regional political elites.

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