Putin has already won his landslide victory with 80% of the vote, so I am wondering why there are such large crowds coming out to protest that win. Statistically, if 80% of the electorate voted for one candidate, you would not think there would be many protestors out on the streets, or any reason to detain critics.
It is harder to get protesters out in numbers than most of us realize. I spent time on the Hill and coordinated some of our activities with the Capitol Hill Police who run the event security. Groups were always overestimating the numbers of people they could get to turn out, and it isn’t nearly as hard to stage events in the US as it is in Russia. It seems like the 20% that didn’t vote for him must all be out on the streets, impossible as that is to believe.
Take a look at some of the pictures that news services have posted and you can see crowds that are pretty good size in many cities in Russia. Sixty cities had protests. St. Petersburg and Moscow had quite a few people gathered for these. It kind of makes you wonder if that 80% figure was fudged to cover over the underlying problems with Putin’s popularity. Putting street thugs out to beat up the protesters was not a politically savvy thing to do. Everybody will know where they came from and how it is that a leader can get 80% of the vote.
See also my post last week
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