December 1, 2005: Headlines: COS - Morocco: Writing - Morocco: COS - Russia: The Atlantic: Jeffrey Tayler writes How the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov hopes to unseat President Vladimir Putin
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December 1, 2005: Headlines: COS - Morocco: Writing - Morocco: COS - Russia: The Atlantic: Jeffrey Tayler writes How the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov hopes to unseat President Vladimir Putin
Jeffrey Tayler writes How the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov hopes to unseat President Vladimir Putin
Jeffrey Tayler served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. He has published numerous articles in Atlantic Monthly, Spin, Harper's and Condé Nast Traveler and is a regular commentator on NPR's "All Things Considered.
Jeffrey Tayler writes How the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov hopes to unseat President Vladimir Putin
Challenge Match
(page 1 of 2)
How the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov hopes to unseat President Vladimir Putin
by Jeffrey Tayler
.....
[Excerpt]
P olitics in Russia has historically been a game of winner take all. Victors amass booty and virtual immunity from censure or even prosecution. The vanquished, if they are lucky, escape abroad or putter away their remaining years in dacha gardens. On the surface the contemporary situation is not much different: President Vladimir Putin, in power since 2000, has packed the State Duma and the Federation Council (Russia's bicameral legislature) with his supporters, and the national media are largely subservient to his wishes. During the first four years of his rule Putin's approval ratings never dropped below 70 percent, and in 2004 he won re-election with 71 percent of the vote. His closest competitor, the Communist candidate Nikolai Kharitonov, received only 14 percent and has drifted back into the muddy fields of his demographically doomed party. Now Moscow is awash in rumors that in 2008 Putin may seek election to a third term—a move currently prohibited by the constitution, but easily arranged.
All is not well for Putin, however. His approval ratings have swung wildly over the past twelve months, at times dropping by twenty points or more. Despite five years of draconian measures designed to suppress challenges to his authority, Putin looks increasingly vulnerable, especially since his botched attempt to rescue the schoolchildren taken hostage in Beslan in September of 2004 (which sparked angry protests in the North Caucasus, to say nothing of horror and dismay among his supporters elsewhere in the country) and his bungled economic reforms of last winter (which led to the first violent demonstrations of his tenure). If ever the opposition in Russia has had a chance, it is now; and the man most eager to seize the moment is a highly recognizable and admired public figure in Russia, better known internationally for most of the past twenty years as the world's chess champion: Garry Kimovich Kasparov.
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Story Source: The Atlantic
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Morocco; Writing - Morocco; COS - Russia
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