What are your thoughts on the results of Russia's parliamentary election?
It's not like Russia was ever a democratic republic in the Western understanding of that word anyway. You can have as many elections as you like, and the people will still vote for the "czar". Russia always had some form of monarchy or dictatorship -- and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for that country. Russia always made the greatest strides under dictatorships: Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Joseph Stalin, to name a few. It is the weak rulers that always brought it trouble and turmoil: Nicholas the 2nd, Mikhail Gorbachev... Plus there are just too many political parties over there! There are, like, what, 5 or 6 "major opposition" parties, all competing for a handful of parliament seats? Seriously? There is no way that many parties can challenge a ruling party. There are simply not enough differences in people's opinions to form that many parties! Votes will be dispersed, and the ruling party will simply shrug this off. So the election results are just as everybody expected them to be :-)
