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What's next for Russia?
03/12/2007 11:47 - (SA)
Moscow - Russian newspapers on Monday said the big victory by President Vladimir Putin's party in parliamentary elections left many questions unanswered.
"To our victory," the state Rossiyskaya Gazeta crowed in its headline, noting however that while United Russia celebrated its triumph, it had not explained what it would do with the new mandate.
"Yet another problem, that of forming a government with the party, now requires an answer," the daily wrote.
It said the party leaders also failed to "speak of both their staff policies in the Duma, and carefully avoided questions on who might chair the lower chamber".
Vremya Novostei daily noted that United Russia will nominate a presidential candidate later this month "but no one doubts that it will be Putin who will do the de facto nominating".
Putin is due to hand over his post after elections in March 2008, but the lack of an obvious successor and the idea that the parliamentary elections were also a kind of endorsement for Putin set off furious speculation.
"Almost Confidence," the Vedomosti business daily wrote in its headline, referring to the effort by United Russia to cast the elections as a vote of confidence in Putin.
Vedomosti wondered about the objectives of United Russia's "referendum" on Putin, and suggested that it could be to "sanction any action of a 'national leader' as long as Putin is such a leader".
Such a mandate could "be used by authorities without limit, both in institutional reforms and getting rid of dissidents", Vedomosti said.
Some, like the liberal Nezavisimaya daily, wrote of numerous violations that went "unnoticed" and security measures that had "electoral commissions on the verge of nervous breakdown."
At least, the newspaper wrote, quoting Putin's relieved sigh, "it was all over".
"Putin had every reason to feel jubilant - over the past few weeks he has done more for his party than it deserves," the Nezavisimaya wrote.
- AFP
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