#9 - JRL 9113 - JRL Home
Moscow News
www.MN.Ru
April 6-12, 2005
Why Would Anyone Vote for Putin?
By Anna Arutunyan
At a couple of outings with friends, I found myself hearing the phrase "I don't know anybody who voted for Putin" just a little too often. I came across the observation on state-owned TV channels and in the independent press. Word even has it that a glossy men's magazine is doing a profile on this rare species.
Given that, rigged or not rigged, over half of Russians chose Putin in the last elections, I find that a little hard to believe. Granted, such sheltered Muscovites must hardly ever take a trip beyond the Garden Ring. Still, if this is such a mysterious species, I thought I'd find out why.
It turned out I didn't have to look far: my grandfather, a 68-year-old Jew, who lives inside the Garden Ring. (Come on, I'm sure every one of you has someone in the family who voted for Bush.) So I asked him, why would anybody do such a thing as vote for Putin?
A small digression: last time I tried my hand at a political column, my husband told me to go wash my keyboard out with soap. So this time I'll try to keep down the vitriol . In fact, for the record, I'll admit that in the last election I voted for Irina Khakamada for president, knowing in advance that she had about as much of a chance as Putin's labrador. Still, a woman candidate and one of the leaders of Russia's liberal movement - I don't know if you can get any more liberal than that. And, in 2008, if our liberal opposition nominates a decent candidate who has a real shot at president - and I don't mean a measly 5 percent this time, either - then I would gladly vote for him.
Now, what's that going to take? Well, if we want to elect somebody besides Putin's successor, we might, just might, start taking into account why most people like Putin so much.
My grandfather, I'll call him Mo, which is not his real name, voted for Putin twice.
"Among all the other possibilities, Putin made a positive impression on me as the only person who could express his thoughts," he says.
Mo, a pensioner who is almost completely blind, believes that people who are poor particularly benefited from Putin's reforms. "He honestly tries to improve the lives of simple people."
And has he? Mo thinks so. "My situation has improved, my pension has grown, other pensioners have been given special funds for transportation."
Alright, but what about human rights abuses? What about the clampdown on the independent press?
It turns out that for people like Mo that's just not an issue that's keeping him on the edge of his seat. "Human rights are the extent to which we are unprotected by the police. That's our human rights problem." Is Putin handling it? "One man can't just eradicate corruption."
As for the media clampdown, "I don't think much of the population really cares about that."
A working pensioner I talked to who voted for Putin, I'll call him Joe, had pretty much the same view. "I was around, you know, when there was real, Soviet censorship," he says. "What's happening right now is nothing compared to that."
As for human rights, Joe is also more worried about the police being able to protect him from street hooligans. "Russia needs a forceful leader. Otherwise you'll get such chaos that everyone will suffer."
I don't necessarily agree with any of the above statements. But for a person who is not involved in politics or journalism, political issues are far less abstract than the way they are presented by our fledgling opposition. Personally, I doubt Putin is doing enough to fight corruption, but so far, I haven't heard of a single pundit who's offered any sort of master plan. Just like no one's really offered an alternative to pension reform.
Now, Mo says that's he's already decided that he will probably vote for Putin's successor, whoever that may be, because he has an idea about the kind of man Putin would chose for the job. But Joe's not so sure. After helping vote Putin into office both terms, he says he's ready for a change.