The Last Regional Government Election in the New Soviet Union

[onedomino]

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Putin has delivered on his threat to destroy representative regional government in Russia. And so the re-emergence of the Soviet police state continues.

MOSCOW -- Russia held the last governor's election before new measures introduced by President Vladimir Putin give the Kremlin the power to nominate the heads of regional governments.

Voters in the northern Nenets autonomous region cast ballots to choose their governor from among 15 candidates in the kind of direct election that had for a decade been viewed as a pillar of the Russian federation.
Apart from scrapping gubernatorial balloting, Putin has also ordered a change in the rules for registering political parties and electing the parliament.

Putin's critics charged that the president has cynically used attacks by Chechen rebels to roll back democracy and have pointed out that his initiatives came after successful campaigns to quell dissent among Russia's news media and crush the political ambitions of his opponents.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31599-2005Jan23.html (might require registration)

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