by Edward Lucas04:46 AM Mar 06, 2012The Kremlin propaganda machine will cite the cameras and computers installed at colossal expense in 80,000 polling stations to claim that Sunday's presidential election was clean.
Mr Vladimir Putin won by a comfortable margin but not an embarrassing one. He is not a despot like the dictators of Belarus and Central Asia, his supporters will say. He embodies the stability and progress of the past 12 years. He is a man who has put Russia back on the map and who justly enjoys the support of the majority of the country's population.It is true, Mr Putin bestrides the political landscape. He competed on the ballot paper with a professional loser (the Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov), an extremist clown (Vladimir Zhirinovsky of the misnamed Liberal Democrats) and two stooges (the centre-left Sergei Mironov and the playboy billionaire liberal Mikhail Prokhorov).Against that field, he looks like a thoroughbred winner.Mr Putin has also faced down the protesters.
Their demonstrations against the election-rigging of the parliamentary elections in December have not turned into a battering ram to bring down or split his regime.He still enjoys a large and loyal payroll vote and the reluctant support of millions of Russians who see him as the least bad option available.Sunday's poll was, in some respects, business as usual. Fraud is not a new phenomenon. It started under Boris Yeltsin in the rigged constitutional referendum of 1994 and the unfair 1996 presidential election.And in Russian election-rigging, the real unfairness precedes polling day - in media coverage, electoral regulations and intimidation of rivals.Yet for all that, March 4 marked a fatal turning point for the Putin regime. Once people craved stability. Now they chafe at stagnation. They want answers to simple questions such as: "Where did the money go?"Mr Putin has presided over a decade in which Russia had US$1 trillion (S$1.26 trillion) in extra oil and gas revenues. Yet the road network is reduced and public services are still dire, while his cronies enjoy grotesque prosperity.Corruption and incompetence mean that even with oil at around US$110 per barrel, Russia is running out of money.The Putin regime - at least in the eyes of middle-class Russians - looks out of date. His staged television appearances neither convince nor entertain. His promises of higher salaries, pensions and state spending,are threadbare and wildly unrealistic. His greatest asset - his popularity - has shrivelled.This victory is more ashes than diamonds. But it would be simplistic to expect clear-cut change. The opposition is still too weak to win; the regime has too much at stake to surrender. Thanks to corruption, it cannot mount a real crackdown.The big danger for Mr Putin is that his ex-KGB cronies will see him as a liability more than an asset. His presidential term lasts six years in theory. I give him two. THE DAILY TELEGRAPHEdward Lucas is the author of The New Cold War: How the Kremlin Threatens Russia and the West.
Source:todayonline.com
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| Vladimir Putin weeping |
Their demonstrations against the election-rigging of the parliamentary elections in December have not turned into a battering ram to bring down or split his regime.He still enjoys a large and loyal payroll vote and the reluctant support of millions of Russians who see him as the least bad option available.Sunday's poll was, in some respects, business as usual. Fraud is not a new phenomenon. It started under Boris Yeltsin in the rigged constitutional referendum of 1994 and the unfair 1996 presidential election.And in Russian election-rigging, the real unfairness precedes polling day - in media coverage, electoral regulations and intimidation of rivals.Yet for all that, March 4 marked a fatal turning point for the Putin regime. Once people craved stability. Now they chafe at stagnation. They want answers to simple questions such as: "Where did the money go?"Mr Putin has presided over a decade in which Russia had US$1 trillion (S$1.26 trillion) in extra oil and gas revenues. Yet the road network is reduced and public services are still dire, while his cronies enjoy grotesque prosperity.Corruption and incompetence mean that even with oil at around US$110 per barrel, Russia is running out of money.The Putin regime - at least in the eyes of middle-class Russians - looks out of date. His staged television appearances neither convince nor entertain. His promises of higher salaries, pensions and state spending,are threadbare and wildly unrealistic. His greatest asset - his popularity - has shrivelled.This victory is more ashes than diamonds. But it would be simplistic to expect clear-cut change. The opposition is still too weak to win; the regime has too much at stake to surrender. Thanks to corruption, it cannot mount a real crackdown.The big danger for Mr Putin is that his ex-KGB cronies will see him as a liability more than an asset. His presidential term lasts six years in theory. I give him two. THE DAILY TELEGRAPHEdward Lucas is the author of The New Cold War: How the Kremlin Threatens Russia and the West.
Source:todayonline.com
