Average Russians, increasingly ticked off
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
ANALYSIS: "Strife on the edge: Russia; Amid demonstrations that trace an arc of dissatisfaction across the country's remotest regions, the Kremlin has cause to reconsider the wisdom of exercising control from the centre," by Charles Clover, Financial Times, 25 March 2010. ft.com
On Saturday, 20 March, around 50 major Russian cities saw substantial anti-government demonstrations in streets. No "orange revolution" on the horizon, but clearly the average Russian no longer feels the Putin package is working, and now with seemingly random terrorism back on the agenda, even that aspect of the Putin legend comes under question. The political undercurrent here: the desire to bring back local elections for governors, something that Putin ended by making the position appointed. Why this would be smart? If the locals cannot throw the bums out, then they start looking to Moscow for the same.
Analysts say a new mood is starting to develop that barely existed before the onset of the economic crisis in the autumn of 2008. Prior to that, protests were confined mostly to within the Moscow ring road an coterie of democratic activists, or the elderly demanding higher pension. Saturday's protests included all age groups and covered the full ideological spectrum, from democrats to hardline nationalists.
Yet another reason why the Western egghead hysteria over Russia's dust-up with Georgia was best ignored: the internal correction builds nicely enough inside Russia, and the notion of the rising petrocracies is shown to be suitably faddish (meaning it gained great intellectual currency just as the seeds of its destruction appeared). Meanwhile, the all-powerful Russian military, which performed so unimpressively in that five-day conflict, is reduced to trying to buy its force modernization from France. Ah, but our freak-out was glorious while it lasted, nyet? Now it's back to arms treaties |
