Once they had Potemkin villages in Russia, fake facades made to look from a distance like the real thing, and now they have Potemkin democracy.

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Once they had Potemkin villages in Russia, fake facades made to look from a distance like the real thing, and now they have Potemkin democracy. In answer to the outward prescriptions of convention, there is a prime minister, a cabinet, the Duma or parliament, and elections, but the entire apparatus is rigged to suit the president's every wish and whim, more a conjuring trick than due process. Vladimir Putin was an unknown KGB officer until out of thin air President Boris Yeltsin picked him as his successor, in return for immunity from prosecution for corruption. Viktor Zubkov was an unknown former Communistparty official, a head of collective farms and until a few days ago an inspector of money laundering. Out of the same thin air, Putin picked him as prime minister, dropping hints that Zubkov might rise from nonentity to succeed him as president within a matter of months. Next year will see presidential elections, and Putin has already served the two terms decreed by the constitution. Either Zubkov will be a puppet or a stopgap, one way or another allowing Putin to return in due course. In a move quite as openly defiant of the rule of law, Andrei Lugovoi, the KGB officer suspected of murdering Alexander Litvinenko with polonium 210 in London, is being promoted to a safe seat in the Duma, ensuring his immunity from prosecution. Potemkin democracy evidently shares the DNA of Communism.