Russian Presidential Election: A Change for the Same?

Before the final results of the ballot (with more than 60% counted), Putin acted in advance to declare himself as a winner in this election.
The ex-agent of KGB was clearly emotioned, which means that the victory was not totally guaranteed. During his declaration, thousands and thousands of people were manifesting on his behalf. This result was confirmed hours later.

Many international observers said that this election was skewed. In fact, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is sure that this election suffered serious problems in its results, as many provinces had problems in counting their votes. A lot of similar situations were detected, making it doubtful about the fairness in this process, as we were expecting here... With this, the use of public goods in favour of Putin certainly helped him to have the necessary support in the ballot.

Although Putin had gotten only 47% of the votes in Moscow (where his opposition is bigger), he was elected with 63’81%, followed by Zyuganov (Communist Party) with 17,19%, and the surprise of this election, the millionaire Prokhorov, with 7,94% of the votes.

Reinforcing the suspicious about some electoral fraud, while I'm writing this post, thousands of Russians are in the streets with a strong repression from the police. Many were arrested and the perspective is about a violent protest.

As an evidence of fraud, the newspaper "The Guardian" had posted many videos showing suspicious situations, which is really sad. And not only this: many people who went yesterday to support Putin said that they were paid for that, and it could be proved just after the meeting. In few minutes, all the streets were empty, and many buses were around waiting for those people to carry them back to their homes. The price: 1000 rubles (around 40 euros). 


(To watch the videos, click here).

Unfortunately, Russia couldn't express itself democratically. At least this is what all the evidences say. Sad, and regarding all this landscape, I refuse accepting Putin as a fairly elected President. He became authoritarian, and this is a fact. But in spite of this, I like the power of the protests. I can't predict what will happen, but if the movements continue, it will be hard to govern the country...