Minchenko calls Putin’s victory predetermined

The recent presidential polls, with unprecedented measures of clarity and control of observers, have provoked many comments on their fairness and legitimacy. International independent observers say that the polls were held according to international standards and legislature, as stated by US observer Clyde Preston.

He said that 89% of observers call the elections good, 10% - satisfactory and 1% - bad. OSCE observers say that all candidates had equal chances, but the choice of candidates was limited, there was no electoral competition or impartial judge, the head of the monitoring mission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Tini Koks said.

Yevgeny Minchenko, Director of the International Institute for Political Expertise, told Vestnik Kavkaza that none of the candidates planned on beating Putin. The winner was obvious, the only question was what figures Putin would get. Some of the votes of Zhirinovsky and Mironov’s supporters went to Putin, compared with the parliamentary polls of December. Prokhorov’s success is astonishing, he was the only liberal, he should not expect further leadership, because there are Yabloko, PARNAS, Kudrin, Titov and many others.

Minchenko denied accusations about the illegitimacy and unfairness of the elections, noting that the long terms of office, the switch between the president’s and prime minister’s posts, selections of candidates, the domination of one candidate in the media, avoidance of participation in debates and poor legislation allowing for falsifications is a common case all over the world, including the US and Western Europe. The expert believes that the elections lacked an independent media, impartial justice, real federalism and split of political elites.

Concerning Vladimir Putin’s CIS as priority in foreign policy, there is nothing else the winning candidate has to do, Minchenko says. Modernization is a complicated affair. The mandate Putin will receive was more of leftist populism. This is probably Putin’s last term of office, so he needs to achieve something and become a historic figure, for example, in the form of the Soviet Union.

Incumbent President Dmitry Medvedev announced the reconsideration of Khodorkovsky’s case. The political analyst says that this is a signal to the people planning protests at Bolotnaya and Sakharov Squares. The chances of Khodorkovsky’s release are high, but it would be better during the US presidential polls, in exchange for the moderate attitude of President Barack Obama during the polls in Russia, Yevgeny Minchenko concludes.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a member of United Russia, has won the presidential elections with 63.65% of vote after processing 99.8% of the protocols. Gennady Zyuganov, the Communist Party leader, got 17.18%, independent candidate Mikhail Prokhorov got 7.92%. Vladimir Zhirinovskiy the LDPR leader got 6.22%, Sergey Mironov, leader of A Just Russia, got 3.85%.