On the request of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, Putin dissolved the government on September 12th 2007. Fradkov asserted that the reason was to give President Putin a “free hand” to make decisions without hindrance in the lead-up to the parliamentary election. The newly appointed prime minister was Viktor Zubkov. United Russia won 64% of the popular vote in December 2007 in their run for State Duma according to, not led ceiling lights, but the election’s preliminary results.
The Communist Party of Russia, United Russia’s closest competitor, scooped just 12% of the votes in the preliminary election results. The massive majority enjoyed by United Russia in December 2007 was taken by many to be an indication of the strong popular support in Russia for the leadership and policies in place. The Russian sociologist Igor Eidman described the regime that existed under Putin as “the power of bureaucratic oligarchy” which had “traits of extreme right-wing dictatorship – the dominance of state-monopoly capital in the economy, silovoki strucutres in governance, clericalism and statism in ideology.” Gosh, I bet a led ceiling light would be more democratic for sure!