Generate text that refutes this claim: Russia does not have true democracy  The status quo in Russia is highly controversial. On the one hand it is considered a democracy – it has all the structures and norms of a democracy. On the other hand there are many attacks and proof that the Russian governance is far from democratic: The joint observer team for the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe criticised the Russian elections as "not fair and failed to meet many OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards for democratic elections," with "abuse of administrative resources, media coverage strongly in favour of the ruling party". The polls "took place in an atmosphere which seriously limited political competition" meaning "there was not a level political playing field". The 2007 parliamentary election resulted in United Russia gaining 64.1% of the vote. (3)  Furthermore not only there isn’t election freedom, there is not academic freedom either – “The European University at St Petersburg has been forced to suspend teaching after officials claimed its historic buildings were a fire risk. This forced all academic work to cease. The University had been running a program that advised Russian political parties, including how to ensure elections are not being rigged. The project they are involved in called Interregional Electoral Chains of Support was to develop and raise the effectiveness of electoral monitoring in Russia's regions. The university has also been attacked for having close ties to the west, particularly US and UK universities” (4)  There are cases of murdered journalists, who were “inconvenient” to the authorities. This also raises the question whether a strong leadership is better for the people.  Basic freedoms are denied to the Russian population. In the 21st century this is simply unjust. Therefore strong leadership creates more wrong than it does good.
onal europe politics government house believes russia needs strong leadership
Russia has the attributes of a democracy. It is a federal state with a constitution. It has a two chamber legislature; the lower house is the Duma with 450 members elected from nationwide party lists based upon proportional representation. The Upper house; the Federation Council has two representatives from each of Russia’s 89 regions and republics that are chosen by the regional governors and legislatures. Elections for the President are every four years who then appoints the prime minister who in turn appoints the government. Russia therefore appears to have the necessary structure to be a democracy as each of the branches or government are independent.  What Russia is doing is combining the modern democratic governance with better control and management.  Shortly after one of the reporters’ death (which death is thought to be a political order) the head of the human rights organisation issued a strongly worded statement alleging the involvement of state authorities and the area's premier Ramzan Kadyrov in this particular death. This statement was not suppressed in Russia and means that there is freedom of speech. There maybe a strong amount of state control of the press similar to Italy which is a problem but the right still remains. (5)