Putin protege Medvedev reaches out to any new US leader not senile or stuck in the past
The Associated Press
Published: February 26, 2008
MOSCOW: The man all but certain to become Russia’s next president reached out — sort of — to Washington on Tuesday, saying he was willing to work with any future American president who isn’t stuck in the past and doesn’t have “semi-senile views.”
Opposition leader and chess champion Garry Kasparov, however, urged Western nations to snub President Vladimir Putin’s hand-picked successor, and called for a boycott of Sunday’s election and protests the following day.
A leading Russian human rights advocate and watchdog Amnesty International joined in the criticism of a presidential campaign that has been heavily tilted in Dmitry Medvedev’s favor.
…At a news conference Tuesday, Kasparov accused Western leaders of giving Putin undeserved legitimacy by welcoming him into the Group of Eight industrialized nations — and cautioned the West against inviting Medvedev to the G8 summit in Japan this year.
“If they invite Medvedev,” he said, “that will mean effectively the recognition of this criminal election process.” He said Western leaders must decide whether to accept what he called Russia’s “quasi-monarchy.”
Kasparov predicted that Medvedev could try to reach out to the West early in his presidency — but that such a gesture would lead to a fissure within the Kremlin between liberal-leaning forces and hard-liners and end in a political meltdown.
He and colleagues have decided to boycott the vote. “Not going to the polls is what gives the ruling powers the most discomfort,” he said.
Kasparov’s political movement plans protests on Monday in St. Petersburg and Moscow, despite a ban by Moscow authorities. Police have violently broken up such demonstrations in the past, and he predicted more riot police than demonstrators.
Here is the full article.
The response from whomever is the next American president is that they will be happy to meet with any Russian leader who is not the puppet of a corrupt despot.
Hillary would love to work with the Russians. She is already a communist.
Boycotting elections is one of the worst ideas; always go vote first and see what the results are. If you believe there is fraud in the counting then cry foul afterwards. Meanwhile, voting is like lottery tickets; even when the odds are against you, if you don’t play, you can’t win. Look in the USA where not many people eligible bother to register, many people who registered don’t bother to show up to polls. Then tons of people who neither registered nor voted bitch and whine about the results to no affect while those who did got heard in calling the winner.
The arrogance of short memory of Russia sickens me! Like Brezhnev was not totally senile and running that country for years!!!
To magarity: Of all the popular vote in an U.S. election what percentage counts? Also how much do delegates and super delegates factor into this election process? You are naive if you think popular vote alone elects the President of The United States.
Anonymous, I have no idea why you’re going on about the US Presidential election. The Russians are having a parlimentary election; their presidential election is not until next year. This sort of election is vaguely similar to a US election cycle for senate, representative, local but not presidential – AKA ‘midterm’ election. (yes, those are indeed popular elections) The main difference is that in a parlimentary system the ministerial positions may be affected by the outcome as opposed to a US midterm election where the potential shakeup is in legislative committee memberships.
There is no need to lecture me on either the primary process or the Electoral College system.
My comment stands that by boycotting the election, the opposition party will have little to no voice and no grounds to complain that their votes were irregularly counted, etc. They will have no voice in ministerial positions nor in whatever committees or however the internals of the legislature work. It doesn’t matter how it works since by boycotting the election, it is impossible to get any of their people into position.
A older article linked on another site had me on the wrong date – the Russian parlimentary elections already happened – the current one is the one for their president. Anyway, you can nitpick my error or listen to my take on the ineffectiveness of boycotts.
This is nothing new people!
Putin is just immitating good old Mad King George W. Bush. He stole an election, why not Putin? At least Putin tries to make it look good by putting in his hand puppet to a position of power.
The world is ending and all of you fools are wondering is: what is showing on the television tonight?
You are sheep ready for the slaughter. The wolves know this and are ready for their strike. The next 9-11 will steal your freedoms permanently through martial law and conentration camps.