Why Russians say Yes

The president embodies the ambitions of a country that is proud of its history and means to retain its role within the international community.

‘‘Why did you choose Putin then?” I asked my friend. He hasn’t worked in the Kremlin for quite a while but was rather close to the team that was looking for Boris Yeltsin’s successor in 1999. “Well, who else?” he replied. “Putin was articulate, lucid and sensible”. At a closed-door meeting in 2000, members of the now-defunct Union of Right Forces party, also known by its Russian acronym SPS, passionately discussed whether or not to support Putin in the upcoming presidential election. The human rights faction of the party argued that right-of-centre liberals could not support a former KGB operative with authoritarian tendencies.

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