Russian President Dmitry Medvedev faced a test of his pledge to boost Russian democracy yesterday when polls opened for 30 million voters in regional elections that the opposition say have been rigged.
Medvedev has promised to break the near-monopoly of ruling party United Russia over the political system.
“New democratic times are beginning,” he said in August.
Critics said democracy was undermined by his predecessor Vladimir Putin, now prime minister, and the opposition said the situation has deteriorated since Medvedev came to power in May last year.
“Political competition is practically zero,” said Liliya Shibanova, head of independent poll watchdog Golos. “Medvedev says we need competition, we need a multi-party system, but election results show the exact opposite.”
Mayoral, regional and district elections are being held in 76 of Russia’s 83 regions, but the opposition has been particularly scathing of elections to the Moscow council, which controls the city’s US$40 billion budget.
Pro-Western opposition parties said every one of their candidates was refused registration for the 17 first past-the-post seats on the Moscow council, most because some of thousands of signatures provided for registration were deemed invalid.
Only one liberal opposition party, Yabloko, was registered for the party race, which decides the remaining 18 seats, but an opinion poll suggested they would fall short of the minimum 7 percent and lose both their seats.
Yabloko party leader Sergei Mitrokhin said authorities had blocked access to the media and street advertising.
“We don’t have elections. We have a battle without rules,” he said.
Medvedev’s administration blamed local officials for the problems in Moscow, saying it had failed to convince Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, a prominent member of the ruling party, to liberalize elections.
“Moscow authorities are not ready to live under new standards,” Medvedev’s chief spokeswoman Natalya Timakova told reporters this week. “We will continue encouraging them.”
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem. “We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” said Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English. The poem was also within the main body of Latin text, she said, calling it “extraordinary.” Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, Caedmon’s Hymn appears within some copies of
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