Behold post-Putin Russia
Daniel Korski 12:03pm
Sunday's parliamentary elections in Russia marked the beginning of the end of the Putin era. It won't feel like it for
another few years, as the Russian strongman ascends to the nation's Presidency again and bestrides the international stage. But when future historians come to examine post-Putin Russia, the end of
2011 will be seen as the point at which the transition began.
Exit polls showed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party with less than 50 per cent of the vote. United Russia held a two-thirds majority in the outgoing State Duma. The significant drop in support for United Russia — despite electoral fraud and with only tame parties standing in opposition — reflects that fact that ordinary Russians are increasingly weary with Putin's one-man rule. Opinion polls show a decline in Putin's popularity, from 83 per cent in October 2008 to 61 per cent in November 2011. And, for the first time, the Russian leader was booed at a recent televised martial arts event.
The reasons for the weariness are manifold. Russia suffered the worst recession in the G20 in 2009. Growth is now back at a projected 4 per cent for 2011 (down from 8.5 per cent in 2007), which is enough to keep going but not to emulate the dynamism of China, Brazil or India. The trade-off that Putin offered — social control in exchange for economic progress — doesn't work if people only get the first half of the equation.
As Russia experts Ben Judah, Jana Kobzova and Nicu Popescu note in a new report, 'Russia is now post-BRIC. It no longer believes it shares the same power-trajectory as Brazil, India and China;
instead, it thinks it is in relative decline with the West.' In a devastatingly apt summary, they note:
The crisis has also prompted a foreign policy rethink inside Russia: post-BRIC Russia is 'now aiming for a low cost sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space and is increasingly nervous about China'. Once he becomes Russia's president again, Putin will no doubt swagger across the international stage and pick fights with the West. But even he will know how weak his nation really is.'Instead of modernising, Russia in 2010 was as corrupt as Papua New Guinea, had the property rights of Kenya and was as competitive as Sri Lanka.'
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Mycroft
December 5th, 2011 12:20pm Report this commentYou mean pre-post-Putin Russia; his popularity are still way beyond what any Western leader can expect, and there is no obvious alternative.
Rhoda Klapp
December 5th, 2011 12:42pm Report this commentThere is not a number here, growth, popularity, vote share, which any western leader would not envy. It is a good bet that Putin will outlast Merkel, Sarkozy, Obama and probably Cameron. There is a massive disconnect in this article between premise and conclusion. There is no train of logic or common sense in it.
Remember when Rhoda told you BRIC one day PIIG the next? Who booms now will stagnate or bust. Who is bust now will rise again. That's how it works. Using that universal story to prove something about Russia to make an ephemeral headline is cheap and superficial. How's that Euro thing going? What is happening in secret? That is the story we all ought to be interested in, and I think the Spect is dropping the ball.
Augustus
December 5th, 2011 12:49pm Report this commentIf the political elite in the West found it hard to grasp that the old Cold War was a struggle of good against evil, they must find it almost impossible to understand the moral dimension of what is going on now with regard to Russia, and they will need little to remind them of that country’s descent into autocracy at home and bullying abroad. The events - it would be unfair on countries with real political freedom to call them elections - produce a sycophantic legislature and a docile prime minister in the Kremlin. But it is clear that real power will stay with the man, and the system, that has ruled in Russia for thwe past twelve years.
David L
December 5th, 2011 1:54pm Report this commentMycroft - the reason there is no obvious alternative to Putin is that anyone who tried to present themselves as such would be cut down to size by the state-controlled media and in the courts. Actions speak louder than words. Bright young Russians are emigrating in their thousands.
Mike, Brighton
December 5th, 2011 2:48pm Report this commentRemember that Russia is a mafia state (h/t Wikileaks) and the Don is not going anywhere until his restless minions send him to sleep with the fishes.
Mark Turrell
December 5th, 2011 4:01pm Report this commentWhen you live in a thug state, you are surrounded by thugs. You control thugs by keeping them sharp, fighting amongst themselves. And you keep the opposition weak by supporting them, nurturing them for your own purposes.
But if the thugs sense weakness, blood in the water, then things can turn quickly. Very quickly. Let's be open to some very strange things happening in Russia in 2012 - otherwise another decade of stagnation and world humiliation looms for the great Russian people.
RonM
December 5th, 2011 6:11pm Report this commentI am really sick of talking heads in the West imposing their opinions and views on what they presume people in other countries want. Russians do NOT want a return to the disastrous 1990s when Yeltsin basically tried to sell off the country to the highest bidder. It was nauseating to see Western leaders and capitalist cronies grovel at Yeltsin, they just wanted a chance to exploit Russia. Yeltsin didn't care about ordinary Russians. The West needs to look in the mirror. Europe is in crisis, and the U.S. needs to stop bullying other countries. George W. Bush was like Yeltsin in that he was a buffoon who ruined our economy. I believe we need to let Russians sort this out for themselves and keep our mouths shut! Look which party came in second to Putin's the Communist Party! This is good for Russians if it makes Putin pay more attention to ordinary working people. So Western greedy capitalists shouldn't think that there will be a return of the buffoonery of the Yeltsin years, because that is not in the cards. If anything, Russians are more and more wanting what the Communists advocate, more income equality.
Jez
December 6th, 2011 10:42am Report this commentIf DK says it, then brace for it to become a reality!
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