Vladimir Putin is now in big trouble. The Russian people came out in their thousands to protest against his corrupt election held on the 4th December as video evidence of election officials stuffing voting boxes went viral around the world. A huge rally of around 120,000 people came out in force on Christmas Eve in the biggest protest since the collapse of the Soviet Union 20 years ago.
Blogger Alexei Navalny and charismatic leader of the protest movement said there were enough protestors to take over the Kremlin and threatened to do so if Putin continues with his lies. Mikhail Gorbachev and other prominent Russians have called on Putin to quit.
A young mother Yevgenia Chirikova started a campaign against a proposed road that would raze her local forest. Little did she know that the man in charge of the program was Putin’s judo coach and close friend. As her campaign took off, a newspaper editor who helped her by publishing articles in his paper had his car bombed, his dog killed and was beaten so badly he lost a leg, is brain damaged and remains in a wheelchair.
Yevgenia Chirrikova was declared an “unfit mother” and officials threatened to put her young daughters into an orphanage. She posted a video online which caused such an outcry that officials backed off and she even won an apology. She is now a celebrity and has added her voice to the protest against Putin and his party United Russia.
Last month Putin went along to watch a martial arts tournament. After the match, when he took the microphone to congratulate the winner, the 20,000 crowd started booing and jeering him and he was so shocked he began to stumble over his words. Naturally, it was edited out on television but within hours, the real event went viral on the internet and 50 million internet uses in Russia saw it. No one can compete with this.
But Putin has delivered peace and economic growth to the people of Russia and surely that must count for something. When Communism ended, the people suffered terribly as living standards collapsed, criminal activity was rife and then along came Putin - the tough ex KGB man - just the man they needed to sort things out.
And he did, a new generation has grown up wealthy under Putin, he gave the people stability, prosperity and pride in their country. But 12 years is a long time to be calling the shots, some would say too long.
Because the constitution states that only two terms may be served as President, he swapped jobs with his puppet Dimitry Medvedov but when he recently announced that he would run again for the Presidency next year, his luck ran out. The people have had enough of the same old corruption and want a fresh start with a new leader. I hope Putin has enough sense to see the writing on the wall.
No comments:
Post a Comment