{"id":8744,"date":"2011-02-22T23:52:44","date_gmt":"2011-02-23T04:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=8744"},"modified":"2011-02-23T09:38:08","modified_gmt":"2011-02-23T14:38:08","slug":"gorbachev-speaks-truth-to-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/8744\/gorbachev-speaks-truth-to-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Gorbachev Speaks Truth to Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

As post-communist Russia has drifted further and further towards authoritarianism, one seemingly insurmountable obstacle has thwarted would-be reformers: the lack of an opposition figure who can challenge Vladimir Putin’s moral legitimacy without inviting swift reprisals from his government. That challenge is now coming from a seemingly unlikely figure: the final President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev. As the UK Guardian reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Russia under prime minister Vladimir Putin is a sham democracy, Mikhail Gorbachev has said in his harshest criticism yet of the ruling regime.<\/p>\n

“We have everything \u2013 a parliament, courts, a president, a prime minister and so on. But it’s more of an imitation,” the last president of the Soviet Union said.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Speaking at a press conference ahead of his 80th birthday, Gorbachev criticised Putin for manipulating elections.<\/p>\n

In response to the prime minister and former president’s comments that he and his prot\u00e9g\u00e9, President Dmitry Medvedev, would decide between them who would run for office in March 2012, Gorbachev said: “It’s not Putin’s business. It must be decided by the nation in elections.”<\/p>\n

He called Putin’s statements a sign of “incredible conceit”.<\/p>\n

Asked how he thought the regime approached human rights, Gorbachev said: “There’s a problem there. It’s a sign of the state of our democracy.” He was echoing statements made by Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, during a visit to Russia last week.<\/p>\n

Gorbachev said United Russia, the ruling party founded with the sole goal of supporting Putin’s leadership, was a throwback.<\/p>\n

“United Russia reminds me of the worst copy of the Communist party,” he said. “We have institutions but they don’t work. We have laws but they must be enforced.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The aging Gorbachev won’t be the figure to lead the political opposition to Putin. But his authority can provide a beacon of hope where there was none before. Bravo, comrade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As post-communist Russia has drifted further and further towards authoritarianism, one seemingly insurmountable obstacle has thwarted would-be reformers: the lack of an opposition figure who can challenge Vladimir Putin’s moral legitimacy without inviting swift reprisals from his government. That challenge is now coming from a seemingly unlikely figure: the final President of the Soviet Union, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2421,1197,1751,2422,1277,446,141,129,1766],"class_list":["post-8744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-authoritarianism","tag-communism","tag-democracy","tag-dmitry-medvedev","tag-human-rights","tag-mikhail-gorbachev","tag-russia","tag-soviet-union","tag-vladimir-putin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8744"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8746,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8744\/revisions\/8746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}