Some thoughts on the Russian elections

On audiences request, again, I'm writing in english :)

The elctions in Russia are coming closer, the actual election day is on sunday this week. There are a lot of campagnes, demonstration against the government who is giving the opposition a hard time. The news on demonstrations in Moscow and St. Petersburg that were stopped by the police, the arresting of Garri Kasparov and other people are very clear signs on how free these elections really are. The most terrifying news was the killing of Farid Babajev, Yablokos 1st candidat in the eastern part of the federation, close to caucasus. Also the chair of Yabloko's youthorganization in St Petersburg has been beaten up very badly during a demonstarion last week and is now in the hospital since that. In case, we actually do get a visa we will have trubble meeting with the opposition, as our contact in Petroskoi Ksenia Filippenkova, unfortunately also is in the hospital. what exactly happened I don't know yet. But they sure aren't making it easy...

The visa issue for us has lead to that we had to change our program - we loose 2 whole days and as it takes a whole day to drive to Petroskoi by car we'll only have very little time there. Instead we have tried to make the best out of the situation, and still learn about the russian political system. So first in the morning Nicke Torvalds, vice chair of Svenska Folkpartiet visited us. He has been a correspondent for the finnish national news for several years during the mid 90s, all around Russia. One of his theses was that due to total lack of civli society that would back up the democratic way of thinking - the building up a democracy in Russia has been such struggle. But he was convinced that democracy is the only path to go. Wich on the other hand mr Bessarion Gugushvili didn't think would be possible. Gugushvili was apointed the primeminister of Georgia, he was also later involved in the chechenian politics and in the mid 90s he was granted political asulym in Finland. We met up with him, who thought almost the opposite to Nicke. He said that the russians in fact are happy with what it's like. They don't need a democracy if it means that the US and Europe are controlling their oil and business. He didn't think there would be such things as free press anyway. It is the people with the money who have the power. And of course, he has a point there. But still I can't belive that just because it hasn't been easy to establish a democracy in Russia it would mean that the people don't either want to have it or deserve it! The civil society is on such poor grounds in Russia now, that they need all the support they can get. And I seriously hope that we'll get the visas and able to support at least a little bit!