Talk about complicated...

Man, if anyone ever bitched about the US election system being complicated... has anyone ever tried to figure out the Russian one?

Headlines today tell me that Garry Kasparov (whom I have met! Actually shook his hand when I was in Moscow in 1988, when I met the Central Committee of the VLKSM) has thrown his hat into the ring for President. He is not assured a spot on the ballot until his "umbrella" coalition of parties is recognized by the existing government, but he is running on a purely anti-Putin platform.

So I follow a couple of links in the article and try and find out what it is all about... and I get a headache trying to get my head rapped around this process. It seems that he is affiliated with several fringe elements, as well as the more mainstream and moderate liberal parties of Russia, and his affiliation with parties like the "National Bolshevik Party" are hurting his chances to get on the ballot. This I can understand, as the NBP is a Leninist party striving for Russian domination of a socialist empire spanning the Eurasian landmass, focused on the destruction of "capitalism" in America and the Pacific Rim.

Putin, finishing his second (and constitutionally last) term as President, has an approval rating of right around 70%, and most experts seem to feel his appointed replacement will win the election handily. How is it "good sense" to fight this kind of up-hill battle in an election with baggage like a neo-Stalinist "Bolshevik" gang of thugs and bigots as running-mates?

I can't figure it out... the man was the youngest World Champion and Grandmaster of Chess EVER in 1985, and considered the darling of the Soviet intelligentsia when I was there in 1988... when did that end, and can Russia produce no more rational or right-minded opposition to Putin out of 129 million people?

*sheesh*