Ah, very good explanation. Two things:
1. Any Russian government will be corrupt. It's part of the political culture. Politicians are expected to be corrupt. It's been like that since the dawn of time. I think this probably has something to do with the loosely federated nature of the country, in which regional governments -- far from the center and so hard to check up on -- are usually allowed free reign as long as they pay tribute to Petersburg/Moscow. As a result, the further you are from Moscow, the more hostile the government usually is. 2. The Kremlin is not very repressive, unless you are an uppity oil executive. What IS repressive is the lawlessness and arbitrariness (cf. 1, above.) The average citizen has much more to fear from a cop or a petty bureaucrat than from the Kremlin. > > "voting with their pocketbooks" is part of what I'm saying. Also, isolated people > tend to vote for the allegedly "good father" (the man on the white horse) who will > protect them from disorder, crime, terrorism, etc., even if it involves voting for a > corrupt and repressive government. > Jim D.
