After Iran, now Russia. According to exit polls and preliminary results, Putin wins in one tour with a crushing 64% of the vote. Funny, since 64% was also the voter turnout in Iran yesterday. According to various media reports, the conservatives in Iran say that these results are a “great slap in the dirty and hateful face of the West” whose “Green” minions (Rafsanjani, Mousavi & Co.) had called for a boycott of the elections. I would argue that the results in Russia are yet another, even more painful, great slap in the dirty and hateful face of the West“.
Needless to say, the aforementioned “West” (i.e: the USA/NATO block) is dismissing it all as “fraud”, “stolen elections”, etc. etc. etc.
I for sure did not expect anybody in the “Western” imperial establishment to admit that the great and mighty US Empire got itself a double slap…
The excellent news for me is that both Mironov and Zhirinovsky have accepted the results and, according to Russian media, have called Putin to congratulate him on his victory. Of course, that pathetic clown Ziuganov refused to recognize these results, to the great joy of his new found allies in the Western corporate ziomedia. We all remember how “fair” the election results were in the former Soviet Union with the Communists were in power, don’t we :-)
Anyway, while I do not have an opinion on the Ahmadinejad<->Khamenei power struggle, I can unambiguously state here the following: the landslide election of Putin in one tour is excellent news for Russia and the rest of the world. I say that not because I personally like Putin – I don’t – but because that at this stage in Russian history he is the only political figure capable of strengthening Russia in all aspects and leading it through the very difficult times ahead.
For the West, the two “64%” votes of this weekend are, I would argue, a absolute disaster. Clearly, neither Iran nor Russia are likely to succumb to any CIA sponsored “color revolution”. For all their very real faults and defects, the regimes in Russia and Iran are rock solid and stable simply because they are truly *popular* regimes, supported by an absolute majority of the people. That does not mean that Iran and Russia do not have very real problems – they both do – or that the current governments are ideal – far from it. What that does show though, is that these very real problems will be tackled by the people of Russia and Iran and not by foreign interests.
Finally, these results crush any hopes the US Empire might have had to somehow neutralize Russia and Iran by marring them in internal discord. That is simply not going to happen.
Good.
The Saker
PS: in the next days and weeks we are going to be submitted to a barrage of news “reports” claiming that these elections were rigged and that the regimes in Iran and Russia are about the collapse. This is what The Economist put on its front cover a day *before* the Russian elections:I could choose the make fun of that kind of “journalism” but, frankly, this is getting tedious so I don’t intend to pay any more attention to this kind of nonsense.
I discussed the Iranian presidential elections ad nauseam, and I discussed the recent elections to the Duma ad nauseam too. I am done now, and if somebody believes that this week-end’s elections were “stolen” based on idiotic ziomedia reports or on the personal biases of Pepe Escobar (whom I really like and respect, but who just does not “get” Iran and Russia) – fine. I invite you to post your arguments here, but you will excuse me if I will not bother to refute them.
Walter Russell Mead has just made a very pertinent comment about the Russian election in his blog:
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/03/04/putin-sweeps-nation-nation-undewhelmed/
Mead does not deny that Putin actually won the election, vote fraud or no.
“Via Meadia suspects the Great One would have won in an honest count; Russia has been through Hell since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and much of the electorate is in no mood for adventures. The opposition to Putin is divided and confused and no serious governing alternative to the Putinocracy really exists. Who knows: if we were Russian citizens we might have voted for him ourselves.”
However, he makes this observation, which I agree with:
“But Putin’s electoral machine cannot resist shooting itself in the foot. Widespread fraud shows contempt for the voting public and the institutions of government itself. …
“Even though quite possibly a majority of Russians support his candidacy (with whatever reservations), the massive fraud that attended the process has deprived him of the mantle of legitimacy that honest elections confer. If public opinion turns decisively against him, he cannot claim the protection of the laws or appeal to the hallowed provisions of the Constitution.
“Stolen power like stolen wealth is never secure. In attempting to secure his re-election, president-elect Putin has weakened both his own position and the legitimacy of the state he hopes to defend. … Putin will have no moral or legal defense if people power demonstrators in sufficient numbers take to the streets and his cronies and power brokers contemplate switching sides.”
Speaking as a Chechen, I’m happy that Putin won. The situation in Chechnya is not utopian but certainly better than the war and chaos unleashed by the criminal mafias of Dudayev and Yeltsin. It was Putin who by and large ended that dirty war and enabled the reconstruction of Chechnya. This is an indisputable fact.
I only wish that Putin’s team would adopt a more comprehensive ideological position, along the lines of Aleksandr Dugin’s Neo-Eurasianism. Russia needs some kind of comprehensive ideology in order to maintain its civic and territorial integrity in the long run.
As a Muslim and anti-imperialist, I hope that Russian foreign policy won’t sell out the Islamic Republic of Iran and will continue to oppose Western (and their GCC proxy) stoking of the civil and sectarian conflict in Syria.
I only discovered your blog very recently and find myself very much in agreement with your political analysis on most issues (if not all).
A quick word on the elections. I think that realistically there has been a little fraud, particularly in the North Caucasian republics. In my view Putin’s team didn’t authorise this, it’s more a case of local bureaucrats trying to please the incoming boss. Having said that, those of my relatives back in Grozny that did vote were for Putin. Btw they’re not employees of the republican administration nor siloviki (either Federal or local).
I appreciate that this is purely anecdotal evidence on my part but I don’t see how it’s any worse than the anecdotal reports in much of the Western media regarding these elections. Rossiyani really do value political and economic stability and Putin is the only game in town as far as this is concerned.
@Raskolnikov: can you please email me at vineyardsaker@gmail.com and send me your email? I would like to discuss a couple of things with you. Thanks!
Dear saker,
Congratulations, good news all around this week end and last week, from Homs to Iran to Russia ….
I would like to commend mr. Raskolnikov here for his positions on all fronts, and I would tell you that most Sunnis in Syria take a similar position as well, they do not want the bands of salafist takfiri, Wahhabi thugs and killers ruling over their country in any way shape or form, and the longer this drags on, the more vocal they are and will be, and we are going to hear from them more and more….
They are attempting a come back in Iraq and the hands of the ugly empire are visible….
Kind regards,
Joe
I find it interesting how the western media has found a darling in Alexei Navalny. Normally they despise nationalists but in Navalny’s case there seems to be a blind spot.
My personal opinion is that Navalny and the sector of the ultra-nationalist movement that campaigns to “Stop feeding the Caucasus” or (as they chanted at one rally) to “F*** the Caucasus” is nothing more than a Trojan horse to destroy Russia through ethnic conflict. It’s very suspicious how their agenda matches that of the Berezovsky puppet Ahmed Zakayev and that of the Salafi/Wahabbi bandits of Dokka Umarov.
In the long term (as I said earlier) the best solution for ensuring Russian territorial integrity is to provide cultural and religious autonomy for Russia’s traditional minorities but to remove the Bolshevik and Stalinist constructed autonomous republics. A return to the Tsarist model of guberniyas would, arguably, lessen inter-ethnic conflicts such as those between the Ossetians and Ingush over the Prigorodny rayon, not to mention conflicts between Circassians and the Turkic Karachays and Balkars, as well as the petty squabbles between the various Dagestani ethnic groups. That, in essence, is Aleksandr Dugin’s solution (with which I’m in total agreement).
The North Caucasian mountaineers had plenty of cultural and religious autonomy under the Tsarist regime, especially from the 1870s to 1917. Sure the Bolsheviks gave them autonomous republics, rayons and krays but at what cost? The destruction of their religious and cultural heritage. Above all, the Bolshevik bandits destroyed traditional Russian culture as exemplified by Orthodoxy.
I fear that China will also see increased Uighur separatism. This will be funded and given a (false) religious veneer by American and Zionist proxies such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. My personal experience of China is that the authorities have no problem with Muslims only ethnic separatism. For example, there is no repression of Hui Muslims. The problem is with Uigher separatism. The leaders of the Uigher secular and religious opposition are tools of the imperium. I fear that propaganda sponsored by Saudi Wahabbism will be used to stir the Muslim world against China in the very near future. All in the service of western imperialism of course.
The only genuine Islamists today are, in my opinion, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad in Palestine. I fear that Hamas are ready to sell out to the Empire in the same way that Fatah did. Ditto for the Egyptian Ikhwan.
As vineyardsaker said originally, the results from the Russian and Iranian elections are cause for hope for all genuine anti-imperialists. Unfortunately, there are too many Muslims still deluded in their belief that the West are their friends and who are in thrall to the Wahabbi heresy.
In my opinion, the Orthodox Christian nations and China are not a threat to the traditional values and political independence of the Muslim world. I would argue that in this day and age traditionalists amongst the Orthodox Christian peoples, be they Russian, Greek, Serb or Arab are much closer in spirit to my Muslim values than most liberal (and Godless) westerners. The American Evangelicals who marry their faith with neoliberal capitalism and Zionism are an affront to Christ (peace be upon Him).
The unholy trinity facing the world today: Neoliberalism, Zionism and Wahabbism.
Michael, I didn’t read the article you mentioned, but from what you quote I strongly disagree. It really doesn’t seem that there was “widespread fraud”. Quite on the contrary, Putin made all he could so that voting would be as clean as possible, even spending a lot of money to install webcams in almost all polling stations (even in remote areas such as Chukotka, Sakhalin, Kamchatka), which allowed anyone in the world to monitor the elections live, from voting to counting. It sure was one of the most honest elections ever, not only in Russia but in the world. What was done is just unprecedented in the history of elections, and I am completely sure we won’t see anything similar in the “democratic” West.
Anyway, Putin raises intense passion in Russia, and just like there are a lot of people who love him, there are also a lot who hate him (just like the Kirchners in Argentina, btw). And those who hate him really do have good reasons at least in two points: high corruption and Putin’s desire to remain in power. But, like Saker repeated a lot of times, and many people in Russia realize, so far there is no replacement to Putin, unfortunately there is no one with a proper agenda and a leading character that coud become a credible president.
And I am glad to see someone as Raskolnikov here. You have very interesting ideas and a good knowledge on the situation, hope to read more from you soon!
@Carlo:
“But, like Saker repeated a lot of times, and many people in Russia realize, so far there is no replacement to Putin, unfortunately there is no one with a proper agenda and a leading character that coud become a credible president.”
That is exactly my position and (ultimately) Mead’s as well.
Mead is an Establishment figure (past member of CFR, no less!), but he is not a fanatical Russia hater. I read him, as often as not, to get a glimpse into how the “Establishment” views the world. Although he is nowhere near the top of the food chain, his is one of the saner voices in the Northeast Corridor.
Let me be clear. I thnk that Putin’s re-election is good news for Russia and for those of us who want effective resistance to the New World Order. My two worries are: (1) Putin’s support is a mile wide and an inch deep and could evaporate quickly, and (2) if his government falters, there is no one who can effectively replace him.
Karlin on election fraud. He reckons it was in the order of 3-4%Moscow was relatively clean this time round with the worst cases being in the Caucasus
http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2012/03/05/provincialization-russian-fraud/