Newly-Elected Duma Likely to Be the Last One Way or Another, Yakovenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 12 – There are two reasons for thinking that the new Duma will be the last, Igor Yakovenko says. On the one hand, it or more precisely elections to it mean that what has become “a fifth wheel” in the Putin system nonetheless can stress the system, something the Kremlin would like to avoid in the future.

            And on the other hand, the Yezhednevny zhurnal commentator continues, the Duma at the behest of the Kremlin is passing so many counter-productive repressive laws that when Putin passes from the scene so too will the Russian Federation in its current borders – and the Duma together with it (ej.ru/?a=note&id=36622).

            The second reason, Yakovenko suggests, is especially important because of the Duma’s involvement with four main trends in Putin’s Russia today: the shift from targeted repressions to mass terror, the shift from fighting the opposition to fighting all dissent, the move from attacking media to attacking the Internet as such, and the Kremlin’s increasingly militaristic approach.