Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
If you remove the red flags, Sergei Udaltsov in his Wiki photo looks like a skinhead looking for an immigrant to beat up.. I would never have guessed he was a communist....
:LMAO: How true. He has manners of a skinhead too, by the way.

1) Am I right to guess that 2 x 6 years will take Putin right up to his retirement?
That depends on whether he would want to stay for the second (fourth ) term.

2) 6 years is at least 2 years longer than the European standard. Germany has 4 years, to mention another large country. The UK has a maximum of 5 years, but usually it's shorter. They are not a god example to follow for increasing democracy though. France or Germany are better.
As far as I know (I cold be mistaken and I'm too lazy to google it out), but France had 7 years for 1 presidental term, no?

3) A longer period COULD be good if Edinaya Rossia really has some solid good plans that would take a while to implement and come to fruition. Efter 6 years they cannot use any excuses for failures etc. Either they have some successes to point to, or they have not...
United Russia will soon be disbanded/reorganized/reformed. I doubt they will last till 2013. The 'purge' is coming. It failed in December, even though they'd won, they failed nevertheless and I doubt there are still enough reasons to justify their existence. There will be a brand new party... and I think Prokhorov will play a major role in this.