Russian electoral politics are a minefield and nothing demonstrates it more clearly than the recent debacle of the ‘Right Cause’ party. A knowledge of past history helps to explain why Prokhorov was dismissed. He will now be able to spend more time on his business interests, having learnt the lesson that in Russian politics there are no free agents and ‘everything is under control’, says Grigory Golosov
The presidential election is still 6 months away, but speculation about who would stand i.e become president had reached fever pitch. A section of society really hoped that Medvedev would continue his liberal policies, even though signs that this could happen were few and far between. Now there is clarity – and disappointment, says Alexei Levinson
Putin’s recent announcement that he would be “standing for” president caught people off guard, as it was intended to. For Andrei Piontkovsky, it was a disgusting spectacle and test of the Russian people that will almost certainly end badly.
The resignation of Russia's finance minister Aleksey Kudrin is a much more significant event than the Putin-Medvedev reshuffle, says Dmitry Travin. Kudrin's cool foresight was the driving force behind Russia’s economic resurgence of the early 2000s, and the main reason why the country avoided total collapse during the later Credit Crunch.
The Russian election campaign is hotting up. In the middle of September Mikhail Prokhorov was dismissed as leader of the ‘Right Cause’ party, having fallen foul of both the party members and the Kremlin. This sets the context to an even bigger drama, and could be seen as the first stage of it. Richard Sakwa considers the implications of the debacle.An African future: beyond the culture of dependency
At the gathering of the Group of 20 (G20) in London on 2 April 2009, the world's largest economies reiterated their commitment to helping Africa in the midst of the global financial crisis. As a result of the meeting, between $30 and $50 billion in additional grants and loans will be available to African nations through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
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Europe from the bottom up
European debate
Democratic Wealth
Nuclear non-proliferation
Women and the Arab Spring
oDRussia at journalismfestival .com
Mali - the plot thickens
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Remote control war
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Martin Rose Bliss Was It in that Dawn to Be Next Door
Vron Ware Up in Arms
Jim Gabour Sunday Comics
James Warner Standing Perpendicular, as books do
Markha Valenta Inter Alia: religion, politics, culture
Paul Rogers on Global security
Mary Kaldor on Human security
