Why Moscow must "Use It" or "Lose It"

[Reality Check]

Russia wants to re-create the military security it enjoyed on it's Southwestern frontier during the last 85 years of the Russian Empire, and again since World War II, but is now in jeopardy of permanently loosing..

The window on doing so is rapidly closing. Here are two reason why the window is closing:

First, NATO is, and has been since 1997, preparing to integrate Ukraine and Moldova into the NATO Alliance.

http://news.yahoo.com/russian-pm-medved ... 19445.html

Second, the constitution, and election law of Ukraine gives the President of Ukraine, and the Parliament of Ukraine, the President and Parliament in power in 2014, broad power to stack the electoral process in Ukraine for years to come.

Moscow expected that President and that parliament to be heavily pro-Russian in 2014 when it came time to stack the Central Election Commission of Ukraine.

Instead, an anti-Moscow parliamentary government and an ant-Moscow President are now the controlling political power in Ukraine.

The members of the very powerful Ukrainian Central Election Commission will replaced in 2014 by the current President, with ratification by the current Parliament, unless something changes soon.

The Ukrainian Central Election Commission redraws Single Mandate Election Districts before each Parliamentary Election with only broad guidance from Ukrainian law and the Ukrainian constitution on how that will be done. The law allows each district to have plus or minus 12 percent of the average voters in the average election district in that Oblast, as calculated by the commission. This allows the largest district in an Oblast to have almost 25% more registered voters than the smallest. The Central Election Commission also determines the number Single Mandate Election Districts there will be, and appoints the members of the subordinate Election Commissions for each District and each Precinct.

By comparison, in the United States, this would be like giving the Democratic party, or the Republican Party, pick one, but only one, the broad latitude to draw all Congressional Districts in all states shortly before each Congressional election and to stuff 125% more voters, all from the opposition party into a single opposition Congressman's district, than a district that was designed to have 25% less total voters, but also have a 60% majority for the party drawing the creating the districts and drawling the boundries. Carrying this comparison on, the Party in Power in the Federal government in Washington D.C. would appoint, directly or indirectly, all the election commissioners, right down to the lowest local precinct level, so that those individuals could decide who should disqualified as candidates, and to settle election disputes.

This Ukrainian law was put in place by the pro-Moscow government, for the anticipated pro-Moscow government's use in 2014, but now, do to the change in ruling party in February 2014, it will be used by the anti-Moscow political forces.

The election law of Ukraine passed in 2011, by the pro-Russian Ukrainian Parliament, can be found here:

http://www.cvk.gov.ua/vnd_2012_en/law/law.pdf