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On Thursday, Rossiiskaya Gazeta said that supporters of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the Ural region created a political movement called In Defence of the Working Man, reviving old Soviet rhetoric. Local news web site Ura.ru reported that the group, which has Kremlin endorsement, planned to give political representation to the country’s 27 million workers. Ura.ru said that it aims to help Putin in his campaign for the presidential elections on 4 March, mobilising workers in the Urals and other industrial regions.
Igor Kholmanskikh, a worker in a tank factory in the city of Nizhny Tagil, is a co-founder and the informal leader of the movement. In mid-December, Kholmanskikh made headlines when he said to Putin that he’d go to Moscow with his friends and personally disperse anti-government protests, which saw tens of thousands rally in the capital against alleged rigging of the parliamentary elections. In Defence of the Working Man may also convert into a political party following the elections, or, possibly take the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia away from its leader, the flamboyant populist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the report said, adding that 65-year-old Zhirinovsky is reportedly ready to part with his political vehicle for 50 million dollars (1.512 billion Roubles. 38 million Euros. 31.6 million UK Pounds). Earlier media reports indicated that Putin’s campaign staff’s planning to counter the growing opposition protests by mobilising their own supporters. An unidentified official confirmed the strategy to Ura.ru, saying, “There’s a huge risk of a public standoff on the country’s [public] squares” after the elections.
2 February 2012
RIA-Novosti
http://en.rian.ru/society/20120202/171098776.html
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Kremlin Mobilises “Working Stiffs”
Tags: 2012 Russian presidential election, elections, Igor Kholmanskikh, Liberal Democratic Party, Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Moscow, Nizhny Tagil, opposition protests, political activism, political commentary, politics, Putin, Russia, tank factory, unions, Ural, Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Working class
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On Thursday, Rossiiskaya Gazeta said that supporters of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the Ural region created a political movement called In Defence of the Working Man, reviving old Soviet rhetoric. Local news web site Ura.ru reported that the group, which has Kremlin endorsement, planned to give political representation to the country’s 27 million workers. Ura.ru said that it aims to help Putin in his campaign for the presidential elections on 4 March, mobilising workers in the Urals and other industrial regions.
Igor Kholmanskikh, a worker in a tank factory in the city of Nizhny Tagil, is a co-founder and the informal leader of the movement. In mid-December, Kholmanskikh made headlines when he said to Putin that he’d go to Moscow with his friends and personally disperse anti-government protests, which saw tens of thousands rally in the capital against alleged rigging of the parliamentary elections. In Defence of the Working Man may also convert into a political party following the elections, or, possibly take the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia away from its leader, the flamboyant populist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the report said, adding that 65-year-old Zhirinovsky is reportedly ready to part with his political vehicle for 50 million dollars (1.512 billion Roubles. 38 million Euros. 31.6 million UK Pounds). Earlier media reports indicated that Putin’s campaign staff’s planning to counter the growing opposition protests by mobilising their own supporters. An unidentified official confirmed the strategy to Ura.ru, saying, “There’s a huge risk of a public standoff on the country’s [public] squares” after the elections.
2 February 2012
RIA-Novosti
http://en.rian.ru/society/20120202/171098776.html
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