Russian legislative election, 18 September 2016

[aross]

Well, only a month to go! Are you getting excited yet?

14 parties have successfully registered to run -  these are, as Wikipedia puts it, "entirely coincidentally" the 14 parties not required to collect signatures, a status seemingly entirely in the gift of the Kremlin. They are:

Rodina
Communists of Russia
Russian Party of Pensioners for Justice
United Russia
Russian Ecological Party "The Greens"
Civic Platform
Liberal Democratic Party of Russia
People's Freedom Party
Party of Growth
Civilian Power
Yabloko
Communist Party of the Russian Federation
Patriots of Russia
A Just Russia

Anybody who knows more about Russian politics who can tell if any of the above are genuine opposition? Yabloko used to be decent if somewhat incompetent, but ISTR reading that they too had been infiltrated.

Meanwhile, 8 other parties were refused a place on the ballot by the Electoral Commission for reasons of varying degrees of dodgyness.

I'm not sure I agree on (part-)FPTP being good for Putin. I mean, yeah, he'll increase his majority, but he hardly ever needs it anyway, the opposition is fake after all and will generally support him + his MPs by now know to be loyal. And on the other hand there surely has to be a decent chance of a Real Opposition (tm) candidate getting in in some bobo district of Moscow and thus gaining a platform?

EDIT: Ah. He's gerrymandered the cities by carving them up and putting them in with rural areas. Would be ironic if the US criticised him for that...