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Team Roster
Genady Zuganov, Zhores Alferov (winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the heterotransitor, a supposedly superior type of transistor), Nikolai Kharitonov
Strengths
As long as there's a pensioner born before 1980 left alive in Russia, the KPRF will always have a base.
Weaknesses
The average life expectancy in Russia.
Draft Report
The KPRF doesn't draft players, because that would mean bringing in young people. And young people are to the KPRF what warm air is to a refrigerated corpse.
2003 Season Standing
Narrowly beat LDPR for second place with 13% of the vote, they took comfy runner up position next to United Russia.
Prediction
Until a couple of weeks ago, it looked like the Communists were going to get knocked down to third place by the Fair Russia expansion team. Now that Fair Russia is going the way of the Charlotte Hornets, the Communists look like they might take a respectable #2 spot with about 15-20 percent of the vote. But they won't go any farther than the United Russia defense will allow them to, and definitely won't be doing any end zone dancing. A line of soggy police tape could keep these pinkos from crossing the goal line.
Injury Report
Lots of brittle hips, bad eyesight, penile erectile dysfunction, near-sightedness means most players will be used only sparingly.
SPS (Union of Right Forces)
Called by some "the great liberal hope" and by others "the team that ruined the NEL," the SPS, led by legendary Anatoly Chubais, the Barry Sanders of Russian elections: he's a franchise player for a team whose fortunes have gone steadily downhill since 1993, yet the team can't imagine existing without Chubais taking 40 carries per election.
Team History
The party of the "young reformers," the SPS's first incarnation was as Russia's Democratic Choice, which failed to sweep the 1993 elections despite crude media manipulation on a level that would make United Russia almost blush. Almost. They fell apart in 1995, only to reunite in 1999 as a pro-Putin, pro-war liberal party gathering all of the Pinochet groupies like Chubais, Yegor Gaidar, Sergei Kiriyenko, as well as Boris Nemtsov and Irina Khakamada. After successfully smearing Yavlinsky for his taking a principled anti-war stand, the SPS Pinochetites started to find themselves in growing opposition to Putin, as they found out that he wasn't their Pinochet, but some other group's Pinochet. Employed the single worst PR strategy in the 2003 elections in commercials showing the SPS leaders as elitny jet-setters with laptops, and lost what little support they had, falling to under 5% of the vote.
Strengths
Anatoly Chubais, head of the national energy grid and one of Putin's original co-clan comrades.
Weaknesses
Anatoly Chubais, the most hated man in Russia. Fear of having their Rublyovka dachas taken away limits their intensity of play. Track record in the 1990s when they ruled the country, impoverishing the entire nation. Since most Russians don't relish the day when they will once again be impoverished while American officials return to their TVs telling them they need to continue cutting their budgets and selling off their key assets, SPS will have a tough time getting the crowds back.
Draft Report
Tried again late last year to draft Yabloko, but failed to agree. Stuck with the same not-so-young reformers as they've always had.
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