winter of discontent

Interesting points on the Russian election here.  As I said before, I think the main lesson Beijing is going to take from this is that even heavily-fixed elections are too much of a risk.  Even the small group, closed door inter-party elections rely on the outcome being decided long beforehand, with occasional surprises.

(Related to the protests; the last few days have been relatively mild in Moscow, averaging around 0°.  That's compared to a normal December average of -7.)  

Comments

[skidmarx]

When I heard it stated that the protests have united Communists, nationalists and liberals who look to the West, it did seem to suggest that if United Russia was a normal political force it could maintain power with such a divided opposition; it seems to require absolute control over the levers of power.

[Cian]

Maybe this is the way to get the Russians to take global warming more seriously. I mean presumably without global warming, everyone would be too damn cold to protest.

[skidmarx]

#Occupy Zhanaozen looks quite hardcore.

[Barry Freed]

From skidmarx's link: The violence came on the day Kazakhstan’s authoritarian president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, was celebrating 20 years of rule in independent Kazakhstan. British musician Paul McCartney was due to perform in the Kazakh capital, Astana, at an anniversary concert Friday evening.

I'll just never understand this sort of thing. It's not like he's hurting for cash.