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Voting irregularities are pretty standard in Russia, lots of international observers and reports have established it. Opposition candidates are regularly jailed

Voting irregularities are pretty standard in Russia, lots of international observers and reports have established it. Opposition candidates are regularly jailed, major protests and civil actions are suppressed, and if you really get under the Kremlin's skin, you find yourself assassinated or thrown out of a window. Putin's Russia is a very blatant authoritarian regime.

m0zg 7y ago
Not just Putin's. There was only one time in my lifetime when nobody knew who would win the election. That was the 1996 election which was largely won by Yeltsin by hiring a bunch of consultants from the US to run it (and I also suspect that his campaign was at least in part financed by the US as well - his opponent was Gennady Zyuganov, a communist). Other than that I don't recall any even somewhat democratic elections at all. Needless to say, there weren't any real elections in the USSR either. Nor under Czar before that. It's a long, established tradition.
- orbital-decay 7y ago
  >largely won by Yeltsin by hiring a bunch of consultants from the US to run it You sure it wasn't due to other candidates giving up their ambitions to stop Zyuganov?
  - m0zg 7y ago
    Pretty sure. In the first round Zuyganov and Yeltsin were neck and neck. Zuyganov looked _very_ viable to most of the older voting population who had quite enough of the "wild 90's" and wanted to go back to the socialist certainty of how things were before Perestroika, at least to some extent, and Zuyganov promised exactly that. Or at least how they remembered how things were: people tend to forget the bad things first, this is called the "good old days syndrome". Russian presidents don't usually try to dance awkwardly on stage unless things are truly desperate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRysHHzLAmM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRysHHzLAmM :-) The entirety of Russia's entertainment industry was paid huge amounts of cash, mostly under the table, to stage concerts in support of Yeltsin. Where that cash came from nobody knows to this day.
    - orbital-decay 7y ago
      >Russian presidents don't usually try to dance awkwardly on stage Probably not in the case of Yeltsin though, who willingly jumped from the CPSU Olympus once (which was probably the only relatively bright moment in his career) and was fairly eccentric otherwise, especially when drunk. I was one year short of the voting age back then, but I remember it very well. What you're saying is true, but you're only describing his "Vote or Lose" campaign. My impression was that he won mostly due to the support of the elites (aka oligarchs who owned the media) faced with the possibility of a communist president, not just because he paid the media. Also the support of other candidates, in particular he convinced Chernomyrdin and Nemtsov, fairly popular back then, to abstain from running for presidency in his favor, after they declared they would run for the office. Regarding the US consultants, I think his only foreign consultant was Tim Bell, who was British, IIRC he didn't design Yeltsin's Vote or Lose since his experience wasn't directly applicable in Russia, it was Malashenko who designed it.
      - m0zg 7y ago
        ^ This is so wonderfully naive, I'm at a loss for words. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/russia-us-clinton-boris-yeltsin-elections-interference-trump/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/russia-us-clinton-boris-y...
        orbital-decay 7y ago
        Thanks, this is a solid piece describing the amount and the source of money went into that campaign. It doesn't necessarily contradict what I was saying though - Yeltsin wouldn't have won without the oligarchs like Berezovsky or Gusinsky supporting him (and the money of course), there's also no way for him to win with either Nemtsov or Chernomyrdin running for the office, even with the campaign of that scale. And the article you linked seems to be skeptical about the role of those consultants as well.
        m0zg 7y ago
        Funny how you missed the part about multibillion dollar "loans" which instantaneously disappeared into thin air.

m0zg 7y ago

Not just Putin's. There was only one time in my lifetime when nobody knew who would win the election. That was the 1996 election which was largely won by Yeltsin by hiring a bunch of consultants from the US to run it (and I also suspect that his campaign was at least in part financed by the US as well - his opponent was Gennady Zyuganov, a communist). Other than that I don't recall any even somewhat democratic elections at all. Needless to say, there weren't any real elections in the USSR either. Nor under Czar before that. It's a long, established tradition.

orbital-decay 7y ago
>largely won by Yeltsin by hiring a bunch of consultants from the US to run it You sure it wasn't due to other candidates giving up their ambitions to stop Zyuganov?
- m0zg 7y ago
  Pretty sure. In the first round Zuyganov and Yeltsin were neck and neck. Zuyganov looked _very_ viable to most of the older voting population who had quite enough of the "wild 90's" and wanted to go back to the socialist certainty of how things were before Perestroika, at least to some extent, and Zuyganov promised exactly that. Or at least how they remembered how things were: people tend to forget the bad things first, this is called the "good old days syndrome". Russian presidents don't usually try to dance awkwardly on stage unless things are truly desperate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRysHHzLAmM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRysHHzLAmM :-) The entirety of Russia's entertainment industry was paid huge amounts of cash, mostly under the table, to stage concerts in support of Yeltsin. Where that cash came from nobody knows to this day.
  - orbital-decay 7y ago
    >Russian presidents don't usually try to dance awkwardly on stage Probably not in the case of Yeltsin though, who willingly jumped from the CPSU Olympus once (which was probably the only relatively bright moment in his career) and was fairly eccentric otherwise, especially when drunk. I was one year short of the voting age back then, but I remember it very well. What you're saying is true, but you're only describing his "Vote or Lose" campaign. My impression was that he won mostly due to the support of the elites (aka oligarchs who owned the media) faced with the possibility of a communist president, not just because he paid the media. Also the support of other candidates, in particular he convinced Chernomyrdin and Nemtsov, fairly popular back then, to abstain from running for presidency in his favor, after they declared they would run for the office. Regarding the US consultants, I think his only foreign consultant was Tim Bell, who was British, IIRC he didn't design Yeltsin's Vote or Lose since his experience wasn't directly applicable in Russia, it was Malashenko who designed it.
    - m0zg 7y ago
      ^ This is so wonderfully naive, I'm at a loss for words. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/russia-us-clinton-boris-yeltsin-elections-interference-trump/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/russia-us-clinton-boris-y...
      - orbital-decay 7y ago
        Thanks, this is a solid piece describing the amount and the source of money went into that campaign. It doesn't necessarily contradict what I was saying though - Yeltsin wouldn't have won without the oligarchs like Berezovsky or Gusinsky supporting him (and the money of course), there's also no way for him to win with either Nemtsov or Chernomyrdin running for the office, even with the campaign of that scale. And the article you linked seems to be skeptical about the role of those consultants as well.
        m0zg 7y ago
        Funny how you missed the part about multibillion dollar "loans" which instantaneously disappeared into thin air.