Everything happened the way it was planned to: there will be four parties in the new Duma, and the figures and percentage of votes are almost the same as some analysts predicted about two weeks ago. And it is not about the manipulation of ballots (certainly, manipulation took place, but it would not seriously change the election results), it is about the country's political process being very predictable. "This is what stability is about", say the winners, but they are wrong. It used to be stability, and now it is over.
Now that parties can rest from the fight for votes (at least until United Russia's next assembly where Putin’s 'successor' is expected to be named) they will have to face real problems. This applies to all of them, not just those that lost the election. Ironically, not only those elected, but those who cast their votes will be involved in the game, perhaps for the first time in Russia's history.
Photo: AP
Ivan Davydov
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