Word: duma
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...They managed that trick last fall, constructing the Unity Party just months before the nation's parliamentary elections. The group was almost a parody of a Russian political party, led by a popular but tongue-tied Cabinet minister and a totally nonverbal Olympic wrestler. But Unity swept into the Duma, or lower house, triggering a wave of defections from more established politicians eager to join the new party. After that, Pavlovsky says, the main thing was to keep voters interested enough to come to the polls to elect a President...
...keep to the shadows, insiders claim to discern his hand in much of Russian politics--the creation of Unity, for example. And it was never so clear as in the highly controversial destruction of Unity's main rival, a party called Fatherland-All Russia, during the campaign for the Duma last fall. When former Prime Minister Primakov, the most popular politician in Russia, and Moscow's pathologically ambitious Mayor Luzhkov joined forces to form Fatherland, their victory--first in Duma elections and then the presidential race--seemed inevitable. Within a couple of months, however, they had been reduced...
That seems a premature judgment about Putin, who is still very much a secret self. "He's a blank sheet of paper," says Duma Deputy Yuri Shchekochikhin. Deliberately maintaining the mystery gives him maximum maneuvering room. Putin knows he wants to be powerful; he wants Russia to be strong, and he wants to preside over its comeback. But he does not know how to do that. Maybe he is too small a man for the job. Maybe even his galvanic will cannot deliver in the face of Russia's enormous failures: his paper powers are vast, but the necessary institutions...
...Russian authorities raised more questions than it answered. It's far from clear that the gruff men in black masks seen on the tape marching Babitsky away are in fact Chechens at all. And when the liberal Yabloko faction tried Wednesday to raise questions about the incident in the Duma, they found themselves blocked by a majority loyal to acting president Vladimir Putin. "Putin himself has maintained an unseemly silence throughout this affair," says Meier...
...Vladimir Putin, must be the custodian of Russia's democracy while running for its presidency in March. If Russia is successful in passing power from its first democratically elected President to its second, then the country's direction will be in the hands of a new elected President and Duma, as well as the thousands of elected officials who now run local governments. Multiple parties vie for power through the ballot box. There are some 65,000 nongovernmental organizations and approximately 900,000 private businesses where there were none a decade ago. A pluralist political system and civil society, competing...