As I said, every 4 years we choose between the Putin, Zyuganov, Mironov and Zhirinovsky.
President Vladimir Putin is the former leader of the "Единая Россия" ("United Russia"; they got 49,32 % on last elections in 2011). Technically he is not their leader today, but he was their Chairman in 2008-12 and in 2012 he gave this post to his muppet - Medvedev. But anyways, "United Russia" (such a speaking for itself name) is considered to be Putin's party. Is a conservative and in fact really "united" party, in the sense that they put forward bills, slogans and general political rhetoric, which is the only suitable for the whole political field of our country. "United Russia" is in favor of increasing wages and pensions, they promise to support all layers of population, branches of economy and business. And the same goes to all the other parties, they're promising and lobbying to do exactly the same things. So, what are the differences between them?
The next "best" party is "КПРФ" ("Communist Party of the Russian Federation"; they got 19,19 % in 2011), headed by a fossil leader Gennady Zyuganov. Our communists want to increase the income tax (today we all pay 13% of the received income) and switch to a progressive scale of taxation (we had a similar kind of tax system in the 90's and nobody paid taxes back then at all). Also they want to effectuate the nationalization of Russia's resources, to terminate the cooperation with NATO and the USA, and to revive the Soviet regime in the framework of the new union with the former Soviet republics, and the countries like India and China. Also they are oppose and condemn Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization. Their vocabulary and statements consists of phrases like: "The main material basis of the inevitable onset of socialism is the socialization of production..." and stuff like that. Some old grandparents pretend to understand what it is about, and vote for them.
Sergey Mironov, the leader of "Справедливая Россия" ("A Just Russia"; 13,24 % in 2011). "A Just Russia" (again the name is quite speaking for itself) is the party created in 2006 by the Kremlin administration, the reservoir for those who did not fit into the "United Russia" and those who have more radical socialist views. So, these kremlin-made 'socialists' also want to switch to a progressive scale of taxation, plus they want to impose the huge luxury tax (Francois Hollande mod
). They also condemn Russia's entry into the WTO. "A Just Russia" is calling for monitoring of culture and media, such as employment quotas for foreign television and radio-production and to control every media through the public institutions (in other words to implement a censorship). That's our "socialists".
The last major party of Russia is "ЛДПР" ("Liberal Democratic Party of Russia", 11,67 %) (liberal-democrats lol
) - it's personal party of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is some elder freak with no ideology, but who fascinates some kind of "special" people in Russia and from time to time he offers various absurd/impossible/radical/chocolate chip cookie/anti-western/funny/grose abstract nonsenses.
All three parties are also radically approached towards migrants. Much more than "United Russia". They offer to reduce the term of their stay in Russia, to limit their number, to restrict employment visas and so on.
Now tell me, who would you choose? As you can see, all these parties are far more anti-western, pro-Soviet, populistic, aggressive, chauvinistic oriented than even Putin and "United Russia" itself. So what the "United Russia" (the huge anthropomorphic mass of successful bureaucrats/athletes/media persons) does, is simply moderating the most common sensed suggestions of other parties, or they support the radical, but the most popular ideas which can give them a wide support from the common people. And then these radical ideas becomes a laws but in attenuated or soften form (such laws as Dima Yakovlev Law, anti-LGBT propaganda law). It creates the effect of popularity of this party, even if in fact they have no their own political program, except that they stand for stability, and support Putin's policy in any case.
Our pro-western oriented movements are extremely unpopular and marginalized at the current time. People hate them for the results of reforms of the 90s, when Russia was floating in poverty and banditry. In addition, our liberal/democrat/pro-western forces are disintegrated, and even though they blame Putin and his system, they are no less frantically blame each other. All their main policy proposals or already implemented (for example - all government economists are the liberals; the demand to release "the political prisoners" such as Khodorkovsky, Pussy Riot etc was also satisfied), or impracticable, or unpopular, or absent and then all their activities is persistent criticism of Putin/USSR/KGB/Church on radio/newspaper articles/blogs.
So, I'm personally don't blame Putin, even though I'm personally dislike him in various aspects. I just realize that I live in the country where the pro-western forces not in favor. So there's no surprise in the way how he carries out his anti-western policy in the hope to gain support of the people.
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