MOSCOW, December 19 (RIA Novosti) - The Patriots of Russia party has decided to support Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the presidential election scheduled for March 2012, leader of Patriots of Russia Gennady Semigin said. “The central political council of the party made the decision to support Vladimir Putin in the presidential election,” Semigin said on Monday at a news conference held at RIA Novosti's main office in Moscow. The Patriots is a left-wing nationalist and socialist party that largely consists of former members of the Communist Party of Russia and the far-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), as well as fans of modern Russian folk music. The party is headed by former Communist Party member Gennady Semigin. This year the party gained 0.96 percent of the vote in the State Duma election. acknowledging that the Patriots opposed Putin's ruling United Russia party for more than six years, Semigin said the current political discord persuaded the party to join the All-Russia People’s Front and throw its support behind Putin. 12/19 13:18 It's time to do away with offshore heritage of savage privatization – Putin December 19, 2011 13:06 calls for screening state-owned companies for corruption in 2 months CHERYOMUSHKI, Khakassia. Dec 19 (Interfax) - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has bound relevant ministries together with law enforcers to screen all companies with a government stake for corruption schemes and connections with off-shore zones within two months. "I request the Energy Ministry, the Economic Development Ministry, industry agencies within two months to companies with a government stake such as Gazprom (RTS: GAZP), Vnesheconombank, and it wouldn't hurt Sberbank (RTS: SBER) either. Bring all things to an end," he said at a session of a government
Putin had planned to make this union the cornerstone of his foreign policy after he became prime minister once again, said Fyodar Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs. Until the protests against the recent parliamnetary elections in Russia, Putin had reason to be optimistic. Russia had seen relative economic and political stability the past few years, making it an attractive partner to a bankrupt Belarus and an already economically close Kazakhstan. Indian officials say that if a Eurasian Union comes through, Indian goods and services would be able to use their near-completed free trade agreement with Russia to access all these countries as well. For Putin, it's a matter of time By Eric Morse, Ottawa CitizenDecember 19, 2011 2:08 AM Vladimir Putin's days are numbered, but probably not to the extent that his opponents would like. Judging by his recent public performances, if the anti-Putin demonstrations in Moscow continue to be treated as tolerantly as those of the past week have been, they are still not going to overthrow any regime. And warning signs have been given that there are limits; local media coverage was heavily censored and influential editors were summarily fired. A cynic might be waiting for the mass arrests to start, but Putin is probably more subtle than that - for now. Putin will probably win his March presidential election with a "managed majority." He will then have - nominally - up to 12 more years in power. The "revolving-door tsardom" looks like a guarantee of regime stability. In reality, it is anything but. Putin is in a weak position in the long run, because he has no real institutional legitimacy. To survive into succeeding generations, even an authoritarian regime needs institutional legitimacy of some sort. Although it lasted only 70 years in the end, the Soviet regime had this, mainly conferred by the Communist Party's much-distorted but very real leadership in the Second World War. Toward the end, no matter how grungy day-to-day existence got, or how sour the jokes were in the street ("Did you hear Ivan changed jobs? He used to steal in the tailor shop