What follows is a very worried rant about the reporting of the Russian elections here in Britain....I have quoted a large chunk from the Yahoo news website below. Following that is my commentary.

Putin wins vote but observers say unfair

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin's party won a landslide victory in a parliamentary election, official results showed on Monday, but international observers said the vote was "not fair".

The Kremlin said the outcome of Sunday's election was a strong endorsement of Putin's policies. He is expected to use it as a mandate to continue shaping Russian politics after his term ends next year, although he has not said how he will do so.

The Central Election Commission said that with almost all votes counted, United Russia had won 64.1 percent of votes, nearly six times as many as the nearest challenger, the Communist party. Two smaller pro-Kremlin groupings took another 16 percent of the vote and pro-Western parties won no seats.

But allegations of vote-rigging and fraud have alarmed the European Union, which said free speech had been violated in the run-up to the vote, and the United States, which urged the Russian authorities to investigate the allegations.

The concerns of foul play could drive a new wedge between an increasingly assertive Moscow and the West, which Putin accused last week of "poking their snotty noses" in Russia's affairs.

Opposition parties and international monitors said one-sided press coverage in the campaign, heavy use of government resources to campaign for pro-Kremlin parties, and numerous irregularities during voting had skewed the outcome.

Observers from the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) described the election as "not fair" in a statement, saying it "failed to meet many... commitments and standards for democratic elections".

The Communists, who won 11.6 percent of votes, said they would challenge the result in the courts.

But the head of Russia's Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov, a former colleague of Putin, dismissed the allegations of fraud.

ENDORSEMENT FOR PUTIN

The Kremlin hailed the outcome as a show of support for Putin, who campaigned vigorously for United Russia. Financial market analysts said the result would bolster stability and encourage investment.

"Russian voters spoke in favour of United Russia, thus supporting President Putin's course, and spoke in favour of it being continued after the current president's second term ends," said Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman.

Projections by the Electoral Commission showed pro-Kremlin parties would win about 393 of the 450 seats in the next State Duma, the lower house of parliament. That would be more than enough to allow them to change the constitution if they wished.

Putin has not said what he will do after his second term ends in May. Some political observers say he could seek a third term as president, although he has said he will not change the constitution to make this possible.

Opinion polls show Putin, a 55-year-old former KGB agent, is extremely popular after eight years in power. Voters credit him with restoring stability and national pride and like his tough nationalism and criticism of the West.

The international observers said "frequent abuse of administrative resources, media coverage strongly in favour of the ruling party and an election code whose cumulative effect hindered political pluralism" had tainted the election.

In Chechnya, a region in the North Caucasus which faces a separatist insurgency and is run by pro-Kremlin Ramzan Kadyrov, officials said a partial count showed United Russia had won 99.3 percent of the votes on a 99-percent turnout.

Europe's main ODIHR election watchdog -- seen in the West as a key yardstick of the fairness of an election -- decided not to monitor the election, citing obstruction by Russian authorities.

But liberal politician Boris Nemtsov called it "the most dishonest election in the history of modern Russia".

Investors were not overly concerned. They said the result should provide stability and continuity and Putin would regard it as a clear mandate to retain control.

"Criticism over the handling of the election from foreign governments should be short-lived," Chris Weafer, chief analyst at Moscow investment bank Uralsib, said.

(Reporting by Christian Lowe, Guy Faulconbridge and Anton Doroshev; Writing by Michael Stott; Editing by Timothy Heritage)



Firstly,  news reports in the West all seem to be saying that Putin has not announced how he will continue wielding power over his people and country. If any of their reporters had looked further into the matter, they would have noticed that numerous reports were openly released in some Russian papers in September which stated that Putin's press group had announced that he intends to take up the position of Prime Minister once United Russia wins the elections. And, more than that, there were stirrings of leakages to the press of Putin's intention to appoint a kind of 'dummy president', from whom he would take power in a year or so through 'fair' means - a vote amongst the party members - thereby regaining the presidency. Yes, he may not break any laws that way, but he would be exploiting a very large and gaping loophole in the consitution.

Putin is, quite simply, power mad. I will not deny that he has turned around the Russian economy - he has done wonders for those people living in the big cities of St Petersburg and Moscow - but for those people living in the villages, he has done very little to improve standards of living. The average pension for a Russian retiree is the equivalent of £40 per month, and with flat rental prices rising to £350 per month for a one-room fairly squalid offering in the cities, food bills for a single person coming to £15 per week after huge hikes in the costs of basic produce like fruit and vegetables and dairy produce, this is one area which is showing no signs of the 'increased wealth' that Putin talks of.

The current Russian twenty-year-old person's mentality surrounding pensions is 'We cannot change the fact that we get so little pension, so we must have children to give us money and accommodation in our old age, even if we dislike children and don't wish to marry because we haven't met anyone we like yet', which often leads to bad parenting, extremely unhappy, very early  marriages, drink-fuelled loss of jobs and a whole lot more. And most reasons behind many of Russia's social problems can be traced back to the mentality of many of its people, who have been used to getting the same wage whether they are a street cleaner or a high-level doctor. This means that many people are lazy and have absolutely no concept of how to get more money by working harder. Until Putin and/or his successor address these problems (which they will not admit even exist), Russia's economy may be growig wonderfully for the few who have a hand in it, but for most 'normal' people - those who live in one room with their grown-up sisters, brothers, old parents and a screaming young child for £150 per month - the economy is simply growing too fast while their mentality cannot accept it. 

The West's reporters seem to know nothing of this. They have not lived in Russia for two years, seen the problems first-hand and talked to hundreds of people about them. Yes, most people there support Putin, because they can see a relative few people in the country becoming very, very rich indeed, and want a piece of the pie. But simply wishing for it isn't going to get them anywhere, and Putin is seeking to close Russia's borders in retaliation for foreign countries closing theirs to Russia, which will surely slow down economic growth and international potential in the country. It's a childish game of 'tit for tat' and 'I'll show you that you need to fear me', but in playing these kinds of games, Putin is only injuring his own country as well as antagonising the West still further.