THE OBSERVER
» Saturday, December 10, 2011
13 OPINION
Russia’s Putin seems to be overstaying his welcome “T
hroughout the day, it was like receiving reports from a war zone,” said Communist Party deputy head Ivan Melnikov on Sunday, speaking about the thousands of calls he had received from regional offices about ballot-box stuffing and other violations in the Russian parliamentary elections. But despite the manipulation, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party got fewer than half the votes this time, down from almost two-thirds in 2007. Putin’s party will still form the next government, since it can easily form a coalition with smaller pro-regime parties in the Duma, but it has lost the two-thirds majority that let it amend the constitution at will. And Putin will still return to the presidency in March’s presidential elections, but the erosion in his popular support is suddenly visible for all to see. The first clear sign that Russians were getting fed up with Putin came two weeks ago, when he made an unheralded appearance at a martial-arts fight at the Olympiyskiy Stadium in Moscow. That wasn’t surprising, as he makes a great public show of his own prowess in the martial arts. But when he climbed into the ring to congratulate the winner, the audience began to boo and whistle at him. They didn’t stop until he left. It was all broadcast live on Russian state television, and subsequently went viral on YouTube and the Russian social media. There is no credible rival to Putin on the scene, but neither is it certain any more that he will serve out the full six years of his new presidential term. He is wearing out his welcome. He really was welcome when the first post-Soviet president, Boris
International Affairs GWYNNE DYER Yeltsin, handed the presidency to him in 1999. Yeltsin’s drunken and corrupt conduct of state affairs had discredited “democracy” in the eyes of most Russians, and Putin presented himself as the new broom who would sweep all that away. He wasn’t exactly that: the price he paid for being named interim president when Yeltsin finally quit was to let him and his cronies walk away untouched with their stolen wealth. But as Russians got to know him, they mostly liked what they saw. During Putin’s two terms as president in 2000-2008, he stabilized the ravaged economy: average salaries increased fivefold and the GDP grew by almost eight per cent a year. High oil prices helped, but it was an impressive performance nonetheless, and when he left the presidency three years ago he could still do no wrong in the eyes of most Russians. He left it because Russia’s constitution forbids a third consecutive term as president. It was a nice gesture, but he didn’t really leave power. His close ally Dmitry Medvedev was elected to the presidency, and then Medvedev appointed Putin as prime minister. In practice, Putin went on taking the big decisions himself – including the decision to return as president next year. But the past four years have not been as kind to Putin as the first eight. The economy has stagnated, and the scale of the corruption has grown too large
THE VIEW FROM HERE
to ignore. (He is not personally corrupt, but everyone thinks he tolerates the massive corruption among his allies in order to maintain their loyalty.) So when he announced in September that he would run for the presidency again in March, something seems to have snapped. There were two straws that broke the camel’s back. One was his and Medvedev’s public admission that they had agreed on the swap long ago. Everybody kind of knew that, but it was still galling to have Putin’s total ownership of the state apparatus rubbed in their faces. The other was the fact that while Putin was prime minister, he amended the constitution so that the presidential term is now not four but six years. In the past couple of months, Russians have suddenly woken up to the reality that they may face another 12 years of him as the all-powerful president (he’s only 59 now), and a lot of them have realized that they don’t actually like that prospect. Hence the steep fall in United Russia’s share of the vote last Sunday – and, probably, in Putin’s share of the presidential vote next March. He’ll still win, of course, but it may be a long and miserable six years for him unless the oil price goes through the roof and Russia experiences another economic boom. Once the bloom goes off the rose, it almost never comes back. So where does Russia go from here? Russia doesn’t need another revolution. Despite the chronic abuses of power, the perversion of the courts, and the intimidation of the media, Russia could re-emerge as a real
THE VOICE
What is your home remedy for the common cold?
I use honey and water. I find that works best for my throat. > Cynthia Conrad
Chicken soup.
> Heather Ball
> SEE DYER ON PG. 14 BY SCOTT ARNOLD
My mom used to steam the room if I got sick and it seemed to help. > Erin Somerville
E
With the year winding down, residents will have a lot to say about whether councillors deserve presents or a lump of coal in their stockings come Christmas morning.
Soup and television.
> Alex Boudreau