] Among Putin's reforms announced Monday: the country's 89
] regional governors will no longer be elected by popular
] vote. Instead, he will appoint them and regional
] assemblies would approve the appointments.
]
] He also announced on Monday that seats in the Duma
] (Russia's national parliament) allocated to single-member
] constituencies will be replaced with a fully proportional
] system. The move "could see the few remaining independent
] voices forced out of the federal parliament"

This isn't as serious as it might seem, in a way. Most Russians figure that Putin will never leave office... and most still vote for him. And the legislative branch hasn't had any real power since Putin took office. Its more like that he is formalizing the way things work in practice. So... no real change here. Next he'll cancel the term limits. It is all very predictable. The Russian people have chosen dictatorship over corrupt democracy/oligarchy. Putin is a facist, but his strength is reassuring. After the debauchery of the Yeltsin years... you can hardly blame them.

Puntin uses school attacks to cripple democracy in Russia.