This Saturday the third mass protest in support of fair elections will take place in central Moscow, bringing out thousands of Muscovites into the February frost a month before Russia's presidential elections. Judging by his recent statements, Vladimir Putin appears to have taken on a new campaign priority before the coming elections: establish the legitimacy of the vote and avoid exacerbating the protests at all costs. Leading opposition members say that Putin's "concessions" are out of sync with what the protesters are demanding, but the question remains whether Putin can convince enough dissatisfied voters that the government has really taken up the cause of fair elections.
Yesterday Putin took a day off from his duties as prime minister to appear as a presidential candidate in front of the Observer Corps, an organization of local election monitors at the Moscow State Law Academy. As Putin told the crowd that he had personally met with and supported opposition projects like Yabloko (despite leader Grigory Yavlinsky's controversial disbarment from the March elections) and Right Cause, Kommersant's veteran Putin correspondent Andrei Kolesnikov noted that the prime minister was behaving "strangely:" he "walked around the auditorium with a microphone, coming close to the students, asking questions within an outstretched arm's reach... he showed the level of trust that a candidate for president should show his observers...he had the kindest expression on his face."
Kolesnikov noted, in other words, that Putin was beginning to campaign in earnest. And part of this campaign has included addressing the concerns of disaffected voters, which led to large-scale protests in Moscow beginning in December. Putin, attempting to win over the crowd, has made public statements like the following, which would be meaningless in a country that was not as concerned about legitimacy in its elections as Russia is today: "I understand, and think, that a second round implies an extended period of infighting, a destabilization of our political situation. But there is nothing terrible in this. I am prepared, if it is necessary, to run in a second round," the New York Times quoted Putin as saying.
Putin's promises to put the rules of the system ahead of his personal ambition make it more difficult for the opposition to portray him as a power hungry leader, said Alexander Morozov, the director of the Institute of Cultural History Media Research Center and a respected liberal blogger. "There is no way for the opposition to get around Putin's rhetoric," he added, noting initiatives to put in new cameras at the voting sites. "Soon you can expect Putin to announce that he is ready for a coalitionist government and is ready to accept Alexei Navalny in that coalition, or something like that. There's nothing especially scary for him in making a statement like that, but it makes it difficult for the opposition to portray him as it wants to."
Olga Mefodyeva, an analyst from the Center for Political Technologies, said that Putin's PR campaign had kicked into gear and was attempting to "account for the mistakes in recent years," in particular those that led to the recent protests. "It's impossible to predict anything when the question [of a runoff vote] depends on two or three percent [of the votes]... By mentioning the possibility of a second round, Putin has taken the main sense of defeat out of it because it now seems like he had predicted it beforehand," said Mefodyeva. "Yet the question is less whether Putin wins in the first or second round. The most important thing is that his victory looks legitimate."
Can Putin win over voters fed up with election fraud? Opposition leader Ilya Ponomaryov told Russia Profile that "Putin's so-called concessions [such as allowing monitors from Yabloko to observe the elections] are a publicity stunt. It would have been a concession if he tried to satisfy some of the demands of the opposition." Ponomaryov also noted that since the opposition was gaining political backing from Sergei Mironov's Just Russia Party and Gennady Zyuganov's Communist Party, having observers from Yabloko would not make much of a difference anyway.
Nonetheless, the opposition's demands remain scattered and underdeveloped. Public demonstrations, like the hanging of a sign saying "Putin, go away" near the Kremlin this week, give little insight into what exactly the opposition wants. Even at massive rallies, demands have varied between middle class, communist and even nationalist opposition members who gathered to protest the elections. Ponomaryov said that his message remains apolitical. "It is true that the opposition has no political program and there shouldn't be one, either... politicians must not turn themselves into tin-gods who decide what is best for the citizens. They are obliged to listen to their electorate and respond to their wishes. Putin, on the contrary, behaves like a wise guy."
An emotional, personal distrust toward Putin and the elections may be the key factor for the opposition to maintain momentum. Morozov said that "the opposition's only goal before the election is to try to show that it is as biased as possible," but conceded this was becoming more difficult in light of Putin's strategy. Yet Mefodyeva argued that voters would remain distrustful of any government steps: "This is not just a rational movement, it has a psychological side: 'let them hear our voice.' One or two government decisions simply won't satisfy them."
Keywords: Russia, Government, Politics - Russia News - Russia
This Saturday the third mass protest in support of fair elections will take place in central Moscow, bringing out thousands of Muscovites into the February frost a month before Russia's presidential elections. Judging by his recent statements, Vladimir Putin appears to have taken on a new campaign priority before the coming elections: establish the legitimacy of the vote and avoid exacerbating the protests at all costs. Leading opposition members say that Putin's "concessions" are out of sync with what the protesters are demanding, but the question remains whether Putin can convince enough dissatisfied voters that the government has really taken up the cause of fair elections.
Yesterday Putin took a day off from his duties as prime minister to appear as a presidential candidate in front of the Observer Corps, an organization of local election monitors at the Moscow State Law Academy. As Putin told the crowd that he had personally met with and supported opposition projects like Yabloko (despite leader Grigory Yavlinsky's controversial disbarment from the March elections) and Right Cause, Kommersant's veteran Putin correspondent Andrei Kolesnikov noted that the prime minister was behaving "strangely:" he "walked around the auditorium with a microphone, coming close to the students, asking questions within an outstretched arm's reach... he showed the level of trust that a candidate for president should show his observers...he had the kindest expression on his face."
Kolesnikov noted, in other words, that Putin was beginning to campaign in earnest. And part of this campaign has included addressing the concerns of disaffected voters, which led to large-scale protests in Moscow beginning in December. Putin, attempting to win over the crowd, has made public statements like the following, which would be meaningless in a country that was not as concerned about legitimacy in its elections as Russia is today: "I understand, and think, that a second round implies an extended period of infighting, a destabilization of our political situation. But there is nothing terrible in this. I am prepared, if it is necessary, to run in a second round," the New York Times quoted Putin as saying.
Putin's promises to put the rules of the system ahead of his personal ambition make it more difficult for the opposition to portray him as a power hungry leader, said Alexander Morozov, the director of the Institute of Cultural History Media Research Center and a respected liberal blogger. "There is no way for the opposition to get around Putin's rhetoric," he added, noting initiatives to put in new cameras at the voting sites. "Soon you can expect Putin to announce that he is ready for a coalitionist government and is ready to accept Alexei Navalny in that coalition, or something like that. There's nothing especially scary for him in making a statement like that, but it makes it difficult for the opposition to portray him as it wants to."
Olga Mefodyeva, an analyst from the Center for Political Technologies, said that Putin's PR campaign had kicked into gear and was attempting to "account for the mistakes in recent years," in particular those that led to the recent protests. "It's impossible to predict anything when the question [of a runoff vote] depends on two or three percent [of the votes]... By mentioning the possibility of a second round, Putin has taken the main sense of defeat out of it because it now seems like he had predicted it beforehand," said Mefodyeva. "Yet the question is less whether Putin wins in the first or second round. The most important thing is that his victory looks legitimate."
Can Putin win over voters fed up with election fraud? Opposition leader Ilya Ponomaryov told Russia Profile that "Putin's so-called concessions [such as allowing monitors from Yabloko to observe the elections] are a publicity stunt. It would have been a concession if he tried to satisfy some of the demands of the opposition." Ponomaryov also noted that since the opposition was gaining political backing from Sergei Mironov's Just Russia Party and Gennady Zyuganov's Communist Party, having observers from Yabloko would not make much of a difference anyway.
Nonetheless, the opposition's demands remain scattered and underdeveloped. Public demonstrations, like the hanging of a sign saying "Putin, go away" near the Kremlin this week, give little insight into what exactly the opposition wants. Even at massive rallies, demands have varied between middle class, communist and even nationalist opposition members who gathered to protest the elections. Ponomaryov said that his message remains apolitical. "It is true that the opposition has no political program and there shouldn't be one, either... politicians must not turn themselves into tin-gods who decide what is best for the citizens. They are obliged to listen to their electorate and respond to their wishes. Putin, on the contrary, behaves like a wise guy."
An emotional, personal distrust toward Putin and the elections may be the key factor for the opposition to maintain momentum. Morozov said that "the opposition's only goal before the election is to try to show that it is as biased as possible," but conceded this was becoming more difficult in light of Putin's strategy. Yet Mefodyeva argued that voters would remain distrustful of any government steps: "This is not just a rational movement, it has a psychological side: 'let them hear our voice.' One or two government decisions simply won't satisfy them."