Putin’s Russia: Farwell to Stability!
Friday 16 December 2011By Anna Vvedenskaia
As Russian President Medvedev arrived in Brussels for talks with the EU, the European Parliament’s passed a majority resolution joining calls for Russia to annul the results of its parliamentary elections.
On the eve of the EU-Russia Summit on 15th December, pro-Putin and pro-democracy forces tried to influence the EU position towards the Russian parliamentary elections and beyond.
While in Brussels Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin attempted to convince audiences that there is no alternative to Putin. In Strasburg, excluded from elections, opposition politician Mikhail Kasyanov reminded Europe of its values. Both pro-democratic and pro-authoritarian forces agree that the EU position as crucial for further development of Russia.
‘More a politician then a diplomat’ Amb.Rogozin says that his choice – voting for Putin as president - is the best possible option, although his enthusiasm isn’t completely idealistic. He didn’t hide that his loyalty would be rewarded with a ministerial portfolio. It looks like the Kremlin is not going to dwell over long on the alleged fraud in the parliamentary elections but is already aiming at the strategies for the presidential election.
‘Due to parliamentary elections we’ve got the revival of political life in Russia’, - says Rogozin. Further he passed the message of promise to bring more political pluralism and new faces into leading officially “allowed’ opposition parties. The prohibited un-systemic opposition which presents a real challenge to the Kremlin proposed to settle the problems of election fraud in the courts, ill advised in the country with no independent judiciary.
Further there is a visible tactic of diluting the intensity and clarity of the people message: Rogozin considers that the middle class went out in the streets to signal their aspiration for changes for the future and subscribed part of this discontent to the economic crisis.
The message from the Kremlin is “we promise more of political pluralism and new faces, but Putin stays.” That mean some reshuffling and cosmetic changes, claiming that ‘the electorate is not mature yet’ and they can be easily influenced by populist choices.
‘We expect the EU stands for its values, defining the situation as it is: the elections were NOT FREE, NOT FAIR, NOT CREDIBLE,” - says Mikahil Kasyanov, reminding that the elections were not fair because unofficial opposition parties were not allowed to register and banned from TV. Using classical mathematic methods Russian political scientists claim the election result is corrected to take into account the ‘artificial’ results of the election, namely the injection of 16 million false ballots for ‘United Russia’, then the party in power won only about 30% of votes.
“Within this fraud of epic proportions” Kasyanov reminds the EU that “Russia is a member of the OSCE and the Council of Europe”, pointing out that Russia’s international engagement for democracy is at stake. ‘We expect that Russian voter will claim their rights within peaceful actions.
We believe that they can make a change’, Kristiina Ojuland MEP, the special rapporteur on Russia, told EU Reporter. But some of politicians call for caution: ‘Putin is a wounded man, he tries to grasp power which is slipping away from him” - says Werner Schultz MEP. “It means that he is becoming dangerous and unpredictable’.
‘Russian people woke up a long time ago. What is new is the orders given to police: we had a chance to demonstrate’, said Professor of Moscow University Nadejda Selunskaya, one of many to participate in the Bolotnaya meeting. The Kremlin’s game is to wait for Christmas, hoping that the sentiment of discontent will be softened by the celebrations and two weeks of holiday. Then there will be the presidential campaign with the 4th of March as vote day.
As an EU diplomat told EU Reporter “there is no expectation that the legislative results will be revised, but “lessons will be learned” for a fair presidential campaign”.
A paradox that he couldn’t explain, because ‘United Russia’ and Putin don’t want to accept failure. Russians clearly articulated that they want a country ‘without Putin’, without him imposing his authoritarian rule.
As long as Putin stays in the Kremlin instability appears guaranteed.