MOSCOW, September 25, 2007 -- In my diatribe on Russian elections last week (Chapt. 265, Even without Putin, Russian “democracy” wouldn’t be) I made a couple of mistakes. Mind you, there’s no primer on the Russian election process that I know of, and I’ve pieced together my information from news accounts and conversations with my students, so mistakes are understandable – maybe even forgivable 
.
I blamed the present state of unrepresentative “democracy” on the constitution writers of the early ’90s. But it seems I was wrong. Up until the last election, in fact, in which Putin was vaulted to his second term, half the duma was chosen by the party, but half – or at least a portion – were non-aligned, which enabled at least several independent and critical voices to have a sounding board and a political base in the national duma.
It permitted the election, for instance, of the handful of critics who elected to pursue the KGB>FSB role in the 1999 apartment bombings. Unfortunately, they have all been subsequently silenced – either by assassination or imprisonment. But at least for a time, as elected officials, they had a podium and commanded an audience.
But at Putin’s behest, the current lapdog duma eliminated the independent seats and decreed that all representatives must be chosen from the ranks of parties which achieved at least 5% of the national vote.
Simultaneously, the ability of the parties to be elected to the duma was made much more difficult, including raising the percentage of the national vote to 7%, effectively eliminating the possibility of any dissident or unapproved voices making it into the law-making body.
So we have Putin personally to thank for yet another travesty against representative democracy. This comes on top of eliminating regional elections for governors in favor of regional governors handpicked by the president to assure obedience and to prevent any local political powers from building independently.
Thus subservience and acquiescence is now built firmly into the law. And with the new laws on extremism, any voice that cries foul is branded an extremist and put out of circulation: A very neat and tidy little bundle and a model of dictatorship masquerading as democracy.
One of my ongoing sources of information on the legal intricacies of Russian life and politics is Alexei, whom I have mentioned several times before as a lawyer for a large holding company whose properties include print media.
Alexei came to his 10 p.m. lesson on Thursday with the news that he had accepted a job as the legal coordinator and director of development of one of Russia’s largest media holding companies, whose assets include both TV and print. So assuming he isn’t too busy to continue his twice-weekly English lessons, he’ll be an even more useful and knowledgeable font of solid information than he has been.
The latest antic of Vladimir Zhironovsky, the stridently anti-Western clown of Russian politics, is to add Alexander Lugovoi, the accused murderer of Alexander Litvinenko, to his list of candidates who will enter the duma if his Legal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) makes it past the 7% voter barrier.
That Zhirinovsky’s party will meet this test is no longer a foregone conclusion. He is increasingly being seen by the populace as an irrelevant comedy act, which is one reason he put Lugovoi at the top of the LPDR duma list – right next to Himself. Lugovoi’s notoriety has propelled him into something of a Russian hero who Zhirinovsky believes will bring some of the voters back to his nationalist ranks.
It is a purely and simply a publicist act. As one former duma member observed, “It is important that most simple Russians view him as someone who has liquidated a traitor.” “Simple” is a telling word here, because most of Zhirnovsky’s support has come from the far east where the population is generally strongly nationalistic and poorly educated. So in putting Lugovoi on his candidate list, Zhirinovsky is merely trying to rebuild his original support base to assure him the 7% vote.
Of course, much is also being made of the fact that being a member of the duma would make Lugovoi immune from prosecution. But Putin had already effectively ruled that out anyway by refusing British requests to extradite him. And “prosecution” on Russian soil would be a laughable farce. So the possibility of his being elected to Russia’s parliament is more of a prickly thorn in the craw of angry Westerners than it is a significant development in Russian politics.
But it at least adds a note of interest to an otherwise completely scripted and preeminently dull “race” for the Russian parliament.
What looks like a Kremlin ploy to silence one of the last independent newspapers in Russia was spotlighted last week when federal prosecutors arrested the deputy editor of Nezavisamaya Gazeta as it was preparing to public a series of articles chronicling the rise in Russian grain prices and accusing Agricultural Secretary Alexei Giordeyev of mismanagement.
Prosecutors charged the deputy editor, Boriz Zemtsov, with extorting Giordeyev by offering not to publish the articles in return for payments of $ 30,000 a month.
Did it really happen? Very doubtful. And in the unraveling of Russian “justice,” we will never know. As far as the courts are concerned, what the prosecutor says happened, happened, regardless of the facts.
“It is pointless to pressure us,” the newspaper declared in an editorial Friday. “We want to assure our readers that our editorial policy will not change, regardless of any pressure of possible provocations.”
Nezavisamaya Gazeta is one of the last of the influential daily newspapers that has not been bought up by a Kremlin-friendly group.
In my own life, my new schedule has kept me very, very busy, but interested – both because my new students are young, beautiful, and smart, and because it’s making me financially well again.
With Zhorik in the army and Igor still in Moldova, my love life is non-existent, though Sergei did ask me to jerk him off in the tub a couple of days ago, just to – ahem -- keep my hand in. He has again shaved his pubes, so his body is smooth as a 14-year-old’s. Despite the fact that I haven’t been able to raise a good erection for him in over a year, beating off his huge cock did at least jangle my peter meter.
My future is increasingly pinned to Zhorik, and he continues to feed my fantasy. We spend an hour or so every day in text messaging each other, and he keeps me pretty much up to date on his daily activities. His hand is out of the cast, and on Friday, he took a handcuffed member of his unit to the pen at another military site after the kid got drunk and went AWOL. He was caught the next day, and Zhorik was put in charge of him.
Wednesday, he asked what I was doing. Andrei and I were in the middle of making a super salad from kohlrabi, tomatoes, onions. pickles, ham, green olives, and fresh dill, and dressed with mayonnaise with fresh lemon juice, and over all a few shakes of black pepper with lemon salt.
I had never eaten kohlrabi before in my life until a vender at my local market gave me one to try. I discovered that if you boil the peewaddin’ piss out of it – for about two hours, for instance – if you take the scale-like outer shell off, you have a texture and taste that – dipped in mayonnaise -- slightly resembles the fleshy leaf of the artichoke, but enormously cheaper. And if you add a little lemon juice to the mayo, it’s even better.
And we discovered that mixed with the veggies above, it’s a very tasty main dish salad.
Anyway, when I told Zhorik what I was doing, he said he missed my tuna fish salad. “I’ll fix that and everything else you like when you come here next June,” I replied.
“I’ll be very, very happy when you’re cooking for me,” he replied. “It’ll be super wonderful. I can hardly wait, Dane.”
On Friday, when problems developed with the computer, I asked Slava to come help me with it. He arrived Saturday afternoon and fixed everything, then announced he was going to re-install Windows.
“Are you going to have to delete anything?” I asked.
“Yes, but I can re-install it.”
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, I countered. “I’m afraid I’ll lose something,” then after his insisting that he wanted everything to work perfectly, I relented.
A few minutes later he lost everything: My e-mails, my Red Queen archives, my current column, my Potemkin U. files.
I went numb.
Zhorik SMS’d about this time asking how my mood was. “Not so good,” I replied. “I’m having trouble with my computer. Cheer me up. Tell me something nice.”
“I love you very, very much,” he replied.
That cheered me up. I told him so, adding, “I wish you were here with me now.”
“Me too,” and asked me if I could put some money on his mobile phone. When I SMS’d me that I had added $ 12, he wrote, “Thank you, Dane, for taking such good care of me.”
“I’ll be glad when I can really take good care of you.”
“Me too. I will be very happy.”
“I will be very happy too.”
“I’m glad.”
So the sweet nothings continue to flit through the air between Moscow and Novosibirsk. It doesn’t take much to make me happy.
In the meantime, Slava announced he would go home, get his computer “tool kit,” and come back and try to fix it. In the process, he called Red Queen administrator Basil for some long-distance help.
And between the two of them, my computer was joyously brought back from the dead. We celebrated with a half a liter of vodka.
Today, Viktor called. I again told him I was too busy to meet. I just don’t want to get involved in a new complicated relationship. Igor called last week and he had been in the hospital again with his epilepsy.
There was a bad connection, so I turned the phone over to Andrei, who asked him when he was coming home.
“In five days.”
But I haven’t heard any more from him. I can’t believe he still has the $ 100 I sent him last week for the road, but he hasn’t asked for any more money. I tried to call him at home yesterday. “He’s not here,” replied his mother. “I don’t know where he is, but Denis is here. Do you want to speak to him?”
“No, it’s not necessary.”
I tried again twice today. No answer. I sent an SMS to someone else’s cell phone he had used to call me last week. No response.
And so goes the life of the Red Queen these days – more action in the lessons than on the personal front. But that will change: I hope Igor will be home this week, and waiting patiently in the background is my Zhorik.
See also related pages:
Chapt. #267 - Russian Sputnik launched 50 years ago
Chapt. #265 - Even without Putin, Russian “democracy” wouldn’t be
This day years ago:
2005-9-25: Chapt. #167 - Sergei: Out with a bang, not a whimper
