The Guardian view on Russian parliamentary elections: glimpses of weakness behind the facade | Editorial
The Kremlin’s clumsy efforts to engineer the outcome reveal growing anxiety about the public mood and a war that is failingVladimir Putin’s authoritarian powers are not constrained by elections, but he is alert to the danger that his rule would look illegitimate without them. That creates a tension, which is resolved through “managed democracy” – a euphemism for fraud and repression camouflaged with ritual ballots, held under a constitution that notionally guarantees political freedoms but in reality serves only the…
Source: www.theguardian.com