Elections in Russia - Comparative Post #2

Russia.

You are the first to arrive to the ballot box on voting day, bright and early, the air fresh and cold on your skin.  Curiosity compels you to wonder, are you REALLY the first one there?  Bending forward and peaking through the slit where votes are cast, you see massive mounds of slips already there.  But how can this be?  There is NO ONE else here except you!  Upon closer inspection, they all say "Putin".  What a bummmmmer.  That rascal.

Recently, there was a parliamentary election in Russia.  Exit polls suggested that Putin's party, the "Kremlin" was going to win about 40% of the seats.  But the final results indicated that the Kremlin had won over 50% of the seats.

Because Russia is a parliamentary system, this guarantees that Putin will be elected as president.  Putin has already been president before, and people are tired of him.  His authoritarian regime had been ruthless in the past, squelching nearly all opposition.  However, he knew what he was doing, and helped contribute to an economic boom in the country, fueled by the oil industry.

But recently, the economy has not been so great.  People are angry that Putin has been the central power holder for so long.  They are angry that the elections have been rigged.  They want more freedom and less corruption, and they will do whatever it takes to get those.

Over the past few years, the world has been changing rapidly. An avalanche of democracy and capitalism has swept the world.  Even China has nearly completely switched from a command economy to capitalism.  Egypt's authoritarian regime fell rather peacefully (its leader smartly voluntarily decided to step down), and held fair parliamentary elections.  That very contagious disease called democracy quickly infected Libya, although the infection quickly soared to a raging fever, as the ruler of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, refused to step down and waged war against his own citizens.  And now, right now, democracy's victim is Syria.

And Syria is going to be one hell of a sick patient, at least judging by that video I saw on Youtube of Syrian tanks firing into residential neighborhoods, in, well, Syria.

Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to live in a first world country.
Just think, right now, there are over 200,000 people in North Korea, who will live out the rest of their short miserable lives working all day in concentration camps, where Men, women and children are forced to work seven days a week as slaves and eat 'rats, frogs, snakes, insects'.

BUMMER.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039542/North-Korea-Satellite-photos-death-camps-deny-exist.html#ixzz1mEXLXagW

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/russia/index.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16337298