Thread: Russian Presidential Elections 2012: Commentary in Russian and English

Elections in the UK were for a parliamentary period of seven years before 2002. If elections took place before this it was because the calling of an election was at the discretion of the government, and the government saw to it that it called an election at a time advantageous to itself. And these elections were lightning affairs - very short campaigns. This led to "snap elections" called at very short notice.
The government still had discretion to call elections when it liked after 2002. But in November last year this discretion was ended with the introduction of Fixed-Term Parliaments.
Thanks to the "first-past-the-post" constituency system in Britain there have often been governments with parliamentary majorities that received less votes than the biggest opposition party. Imagine the stink if Putin tried to create an electoral system as rotten and rigged as this in Russia!
I've noticed a lot of commentators sneering at a president elected by less than 50% of the voters. But this is the norm in most European countries as far as I know. It's very unusual for a presidential election to be decided in the first round. Eg very recently in Finland.
Another aspect of slanted reporting - sudden and disproportionate emphasis on things normally ignored when they occur at home or in allied countries - is the orchestrated wailing of the media in Sweden (where I live) about corruption and violence suddenly increasing in Russia in the run-up to the election. As if it materialized out of nowhere. Democratic, squeaky-clean Russia suddenly going bad because of Putin. You'd almost think the Muslims are reaching their best-by date as bogey-men and it's time to resuscitate the traditional Russian-Soviet-Russian bogeyman again.
One thing all this shows is that Russia is once more claiming its rightful place in the International Community as a thief among thieves.

Originally Posted by Xjy

Elections in the UK were for a parliamentary period of seven years before 2002. If elections took place before this it was because the calling of an election was at the discretion of the government, and the government saw to it that it called an election at a time advantageous to itself. And these elections were lightning affairs - very short campaigns. This led to "snap elections" called at very short notice.
The government still had discretion to call elections when it liked after 2002. But in November last year this discretion was ended with the introduction of Fixed-Term Parliaments.

That's not the best bit. The best bit is that any future government (with a Commons majority) could simply repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act and then trigger a general election anyway, so it's literally not worth the paper it's written on.

Though I have to say, short election campaigns are one of the few things I do like about the British electoral system.