A surprisingly explicit retweet sent from Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s Twitter account yesterday has ignited both the twitterverse and blogosphere with speculation about the behind the scenes mechanisms of the Presidential social media presence. The message, which ran, “If someone uses the expression ‘the party of rogues and thieves’ in his blog, he is a f**king c**k sucking idiot,” was instantly spread throughout social networks and blogs before being erased from President Medvedev’s account.
During the day, the Kremlin press service explained that the message had been sent by a technical staff member and promised that “the perpetrators will face summary discipline.”
The epithet ‘Party of rogues and thieves’ is used by many opposition minded Russians for United Russia, the ruling party, expressing contempt for a government they feel represents the country’s corrupt bureaucracy. The expression could be heard circulating at demonstrations that took place over the past few days in the capital following United Russia’s controversial victory in last Sunday’s parliamentary elections. Several opposition blogs and online media portals were hit by hacker attacks on election day.
Among a variety of interpretations as to the source and possible hacking of the Presidential Twitter account, the now famous phrase may have been used for the first time by anti-corruption blogger Alexey Navalny in an impassioned exchange with one of his own supporters during a demonstration the day after the election, perhaps pointing to the perceived dilettantism of the opposition who Kremlin supporters stereotype as an unthinking mass that really only follow a few troublemakers when they employ such crude slogans.
Navalny and a number of other protesters were arrested that day.
