Russia’s Putin shakes off alleged assassination plot, says, ‘Let them fear us’

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared Tuesday he doesn’t fear assassination attempts, a day after state television reported that security forces had foiled a plot to kill him.

Putin said Tuesday in his first comment on the plot that he had been informed about it but wasn’t intimidated.

“People in my position have to live with it,” he said on a trip to the southern city of Astrakhan. “It would be impossible to carry on if you fear that. Let them fear us.”

Gennady Zyuganov, the Communist leader running a distant second to Putin in the polls, called the report “a cheap trick that reeks.”

The nationalist party leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said the assassination plot was invented by political spin doctors and designed to appeal to “poorly educated old ladies.”

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Представители политических партий дискутируют, как изменить избирательную систему
Political parties discuss how to change the electoral system

(Source: 1tv.ru)

Putin Tries Making Nice With Angry Russian Voters

Russian president-in-waiting, Vladimir Putin, has been the source of much disdain since the Dec. 4 Parliamentary elections. His party, United Russia, was accused of fraud. No criminal charges have occurred since. United Russia also lost over 50 seats in the Parliament to rival Communist and Liberal Democrats, which, ironically, are not liberal democrats but are a pro-nationalistic anti-immigrant party. Their voters, and others, have taken to the streets to demonstrate their disdain for Putin and his party, which he leads. Putin is expected to be voted in as President once again in March. He is now Prime Minister. So to calm the rabble, Putin penned an op-ed in Izvestia, a daily newspaper, earlier this week where he wrote about corruption and what he heck Russia should do, after they elect him.

Putin, the charismatic ex-KGB agent, called politics “short of breath” and limited to matters of preserving or redistributing power and wealth.

“Traditionally, in Russia this situation was caused by weak public control over politicians as well as by an underdeveloped civil society. This is gradually changing, but still very slowly. There can be no real democracy without policies that are accepted by a majority and that also reflect the interests of this majority,” he wrote. “It is possible, for a short period of time, to captivate a large part of society by colorful slogans, by images of a wonderful future. But if people then do not see themselves in this future, they will permanently turn away from politics and society. This has already happened many times in our history.”

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Russia hopes Olympics will improve British ties

LONDON (AP) — The London Olympics can help Russia improve diplomatic relations with Britain following several disputes, a Russian Olympic Committee leader said Thursday.

Relations between the two countries soured after the 2006 death of dissident ex-Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko in London, with Russia refusing repeated British requests for the extradition of the chief suspect.

Litvinenko made a deathbed statement accusing Russian leader Vladimir Putin of authorizing his killing.

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Russia’s election chief rejects demands to step down over alleged fraud

MOSCOW — Russia’s top election official on Thursday shrugged off protesters’ demands that he step down over alleged fraud during last month’s parliamentary ballot, saying he would listen only to the nations’ leaders.

Central Election Commission chief Vladimir Churov said on Ekho Moskvy radio that he intends to serve the remaining four years of his term. He dismissed observers’ statements that the Dec. 4 vote was manipulated to allow Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s party retain its majority in parliament, and tried to turn the tables on his critics, accusing them of forging their evidence.

The allegations of vote violations sparked Russia’s largest anti-government protests in two decades and have hurt Putin’s bid to extend his 12-year rule by reclaiming the presidency in another election in March.

(I forgot to post the link, I guess. Anyways, it’s been updated with the link)

(Source: google.com)

Russia’s Democratic Winter

This is not how the New Year was supposed to begin for Vladimir Putin. The official script was clear enough. After presiding over his United Russia party’s now-routine rigging of the December 4^th parliamentary elections, Putin was supposed to sail to victory in the coming March presidential race, resuming the office that he never truly relinquished to his longtime deputy, Dmitry Medvedev, while a passive Russian public looked on. But that script, so familiar in recent years, has been rejected by an unlikely source: a fed-up and suddenly politically conscious Russian middle class.