? --------------------- Because people vote for Putin, not Unity (which is the party that was cobbled together for him). It was Novaya Gazeta, I think, who summed things up nicely with the line that, for many people in Russia, "My president is Putin, and my party is the Communist Party."
Actually, while the economy is still growing, real wages have been declining in some of the regions for the past couple of months.
In my opinion, incidentally, purging the Duma committees of the KPRF was really, really dumb. Now, instead of being a relatively tame left-centrist party, they're going to have to go into open opposition.
Chris Doss The Russia Journal
-Is there some evidenece of ecreasing growth rates in the last months?
Alexandre Fenelon