Table of Contents
Russia is a big country, actually the biggest country by square kilometer, with 17,098,242 square kilometers. That’s more than 2 times as much as Brazil, ranking as the 5th biggest country by square kilometer. Russia also has the 9th largest population in the world. Russia’s capital is Moscow and its leader is the infamous Vladimir Putin. The three criteria Russia is being judged by are its, freedom, equality and control.
Firstly, there isn’t freedom in Russia, to prove this, Russia is rated 20 out of 100 (0 being least free and 100 being most free). Russia’s freedom rating is 6.5 out of 7 (0 being most free and 7 being least free), political rights are rated 7 out of 7 and civil liberties are rated at 6 out of 7. Russians have the freedom to buy whatever he/she pleases (as long as it is legal) such as a house, or material goods like electronics or clothing. But because the government focused resources and time into the production of heavy equipment, for mostly war purposes, made the production of other goods go immensely downhill. All the materials that could have gone into things such as cars or electronics were used tanks, airplanes and etc. So although the Russians are free in this aspect of choice, there isn’t much variety in almost anything related to consumer goods.
Latest Protests in Russia
In January, in response to authorities barring Alexei Navalny, a leading opposition politician, from running for president, his supporters organized nationwide rallies at which police detained over 370 people. Police also raided Navalny’s campaign offices, and in some cities made home visits to warn people who had indicated on social media that they would attend rallies”. Even in peaceful protests, like the one in May 2018, police had detained 1,600 people, in some cases using excessive force to do so. In the following year, “September, police detained at least 1,195 people, including at least 60 children, in 39 cities at peaceful protests against plans to raise the pension age. Police also detained at least 14 journalists covering the protests and beat three of them. Numerous peaceful protesters sustained injuries, including bruising and fractures from police beatings”. Police was interfering with protesters for their rights because of superior authority. The pattern is clear, there certainly is a problem with the way Russia handles its people’s right to participate in peaceful demonstrations. To give Russia a grade on how it behaves concerning its freedom would be an f, for fail Furthermore, this is because freedom is the right to speak or act as one wants (saying it doesn’t break the law), and not being able to have an impact on your community and be able to show disagreement to a law or action taken within your community that will have an effect upon you is simply, a lack of freedom.
127 our experts are availableright now
Secondly, equality is rare in Russia, the discussion of bribery and corruption is vivid for those to talk about in Russia. This is because corruption and bribery are normal, like in Moscow, according to Numbeo, the crime rate is low or moderate in all crimes for the exception of corruption and bribery, “And according to a Russian criminal statistics website run by the federal Prosecutor General’s Office, there were 3,315 registered cases from January to November 2018 in which a bribe was received in Russia and 2,408 cases in which a bribe was offered”, moreover Russia is, according to Corruption Perceptions, is rated 28 out of 100 in corruption, showing how bad its current situation is. Because of corruption and bribery, Vladimir Putin allowed “officials to escape prosecution for corruption under “force majeure”, or exceptional, circumstances”, this further adds onto the norm connected with corruption because this allows others to get away with this corruption. Russia has over 2,400 cases in which bribery was offered, showing how often this occurs. All citizens have equal rights to vote, as long as you are a Russian citizen and are 18 years of age or older they qualify.
Lastly, the control of Russian government currently in control of Vladimir Putin. Putin won his first election in 2000, to serve 2 terms, each being 4 years, then he won again in 2008, but this time to be prime minister and Dmitry Medvedev became president, this was because, by law, Putin could only serve 2 consecutive terms. Later in 2012, he was re-elected in 2012 for a 6-year term under the new law, and recently in 2018 was re-elected once again to serve another 6 years as president (2018). Putin, at the end of his term, will have served for nearly a quarter of the century. To answer this simply over who has control, one particular party does usually win. The requirements for running for the presidency is you must be a Russian citizen and have been residing in Russia for at least 10 years, which is the standard so far until getting to the part of not being able to hold dual citizenship.
So if an individual who wanted to become a candidate, and matched the above requirements, but were dual citizenship, he/she would have to surrender it to qualify. Another requirement in order to pass is that you must not have a criminal record, nevertheless, it is okay to have a criminal case as long as it was four or more years ago. These requirements greatly limit who runs for the presidency, but surprisingly the requirements aren’t the hard part. “The legal requirements are the easy part, according Grigorii Golosov, a political scientist at the European University at St Petersburg, who argues that the political system that has emerged in the post-Soviet era is nothing more than “electoral authoritarianism”. From the quote above, this means that there is limited political freedom because the form of government is characterized by a strong central power. These are people who are officials, the same people Vladimir Putin created a law to numb their consequences. To grade Russia on how it controls its government and its system, it would be generous to give it a c plus, additionally this is because the system is bureaucracy and not trustworthy because of the high corruption and bribery within the system.
Conclusion
To conclude this report card, somethings Russia should improve upon are, how it deals with protesters, laws relating to corruption and bribery, try to shift their government system more towards democracy than to have it be electoral authoritarianism, and focus more on creating jobs that will produce good that are necessities.
