Current Event #5

http://www.economist.com/node/21549973
A huge uproar in Russia was caused last week when the outgoing Prime Minister, and former president, Vladimir Putin was elected back into the office of the presidency.  He won with a 64% majority, ensuring that he would not have to go into the second round of elections, and won the presidency for himself.  People all over Russia are rioting and mad because the elections were clearly rigged for Putin.  The last few elections hadn't been very hard to manipulate because people didn't care as much, but now it's clear that civil society is taking hold of Russia.  It's said that Putin supporters rode buses throughout Russia from one polling station to the next, and that the Kremlin was clearly in on the plan.  A majority of people in Moscow are especially angry with the rigged vote.  Putin himself had to force about 100,000 people together to unwillingly attend a celebration party for his victory.   The people had to be guarded by police forces.  All of Putin's main opponents had already been barred from being able to truly compete before the race for the presidency ever took place.  The Kremlin-run media has been running news about Putin's victory since the end of the election. 15,000 Muscovites gathered in Pushkin Square to protest the election.  Putin's been using threats of violence to get the protesters out.  I think that time is running short for Putin's presidency.  He may have to step down from the presidency in order to appease the country and especially the middle class Muscovites.  He did them a real dishonor by making the election corrupt, and now he's lost almost all sense of legitmacy that he had before.  The Russian people don't like the movement away from democracy and back towards communist ideals.  It will be interesting to see how long Putin keeps trying to make this corrupt government work before he caves in.