Waiting for an explanation

First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev won Russia’s presidential election, preliminary results from the Central Election Commission showed 3 March in the morning. With 99% of the ballots counted, Medvedev, 42, received 70.22% of the vote in Sunday’s elections with a record turnout of 69.6% of the country’s 109 million eligible voters, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov was on 17.77%, the leader of Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky had 9.37%, the leader of the Democratic Party, Andrey Bogdanov, – 1.29%. Medvedev has indicated in his election speeches that he will reform the spheres where the people want change most urgently. It is the social sphere, where the gap between the rich and the poor keeps growing, while access to quality healthcare and education remains narrow for the general public. Another sphere concerns relations between the people and the state, where bureaucrats’ arbitrary rule at all levels of the power pyramid is growing stronger. Two of Dmitry Medvedev’s opponents in Sunday’s Russian presidential polls have declared their intention to contest the results of the elections in court. Before the elections the President of Russian Catholic Bishops’ Conference bishop Joseph Werth called all Russian Catholics to take part in the elections, because, according to Catholic teaching. it is not only a right, but also an obligation to vote. But bishop Werth did not make any sign for believers whom to vote. He express the readiness of Russian Catholics for fruitful collaboration with Russian State. In these days the bishops will probably comment the elections. In fact Catholics in Russia had yesterday a very difficult choice, because the context of the elections was very complicated. From one side, candidates for Presidency seem to ignore this electoral minority (less that 1% of the population) – there were no any mentions in media about any their contacts with Catholic authorities in Russia. From another, Moscow Patriarchate, supporting the favorite candidate, at the same time calls on Vatican demanding to abolish Catholic dioceses in Russia. First call was made by Metropolitan Kirill in December 2007, recently Bishop Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Vienna and Austria, Representative of the Russian Orthodox Church to the European Institutions 26 February called once again for “serious and elaborate discussion” on existence of Catholic dioceses in Russia. So, there is a question about the policy new elected President will provide towards Catholics. No one of his predecessors have ever invited any Catholic bishop for the audience to discuss Catholic problems. One of the most important of them now – the problem of visas for foreign priests. Catholics are also not invited to be a members of Civil Chamber of Russian Federation, where Orthodox, Muslims, Jews and Protestants are presented. The last presidential campaign in Russia has been described by experts and ordinary people as the flabbiest and most boring in the country’s post-Communist history, because the winner was very predictable. Authorities in St. Petersburg have banned opposition coalition “The Other Russia” from holding a “dissenters’ march” in the city center on March 3, the day after the country’s presidential election.