Russian Presidential Elections, March 2008

Michael Lucas Editor

With President Putin hopping around the world to shore up his prestige and not to be outdone by President Bush in making so many promises, signing deals and trying to bolster up alliances – his statement in Australia, where a meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders took place last month is very revealing: “We have come to the greatest dawn of  Russian-Chinese relations.” Putin also told Chinese President Hu Jintao that: “Whoever takes the reins of power in Russia at the March presidential elections, this policy of cooperation will not change in the coming years.”

That is a very nice public relations statement from one President of Capitalist Russia to another President of Capitalist China – even though the Chinese President still considers himself and China as Communist.

A we mentioned in the previous issue of NSC, there is a movement in Russia now that is of course promoted and well-funded in order to change the laws and give the President a seven-year term. Did this movement spring up “just by chance” or is this a well-planned political move to keep Putin and his policies in power or to be given to his to be “chosen stooge” after the March 2008 elections?

With the upcoming Russian presidential elections in March of 2008 on the horizon, NSC has received a statement from Gennady Zyuganov of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation – that was an appeal sent to the Russian Communist and Workers Parties. This statement informs everyone that the election of Deputies to the Russian State Duma will take place on December 2, 2007. With the new law enacted by the present regime, only those parties that will win 7% or more of the votes cast will be able to be in line for the distribution of seats to the Russian Duma. The Election Blocks are banned now and no “minimum turnout” is set and, the ballots will eliminate the option of voting “against all the candidates”

The statement by the CPRF stated that they are contesting all seats to the Russian Duma in this election. NSC readers know only too well that when Gennady Zyuganov of the CPRF ran for president the first time, he actually won the vote – but, as documents now factually show, he abdicated his responsibility, and thus Yeltsin the Butcher came to power. Then as the Russian people soon realized what this drunkard was all about, Yeltsin then in reality put Putin into power.

As NSC readers read in the last issue of NSC, there is another candidate running for President of Russia, Oleg Shenin of the reconstituted Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and he is also appealing for unity.

Any thinking student of politics, government and the class struggle knows, that In Unity There is Strength!

If the thinking of those CPRF and CPSU leaders agree with this absolute truth – then why on earth do they not unite their forces and efforts for one candidate – if their policy is  (wrong as it is ) that in the present President Putin’s regime, the Communist candidate for President will  win power?

Obviously there is opportunism and revisionism that is the cancer eating away at the vital organs of the preset Communist movement, much to the glee and also much support by reactionary forces that are headed by imperialism.