Putin back in Kremlin, like the tsar his challenge is to embrace reforms
Moscow (AsiaNews) - With all the pomp and ceremony of the occasion, Vladimir Putin is back behind the gilded walls of the Kremlin, the third time in 12 years, far from the people. Indeed, the swearing ceremony was worthy of Imperial Russia, and the president's attitudes towards the challenges that now await him bring back the memories of the last tsar, Nicholas II. Still steeped in a worldview centred on repression and unable to adapt to a country no longer blinded by the aura of sacredness that surrounded his first two mandates (200-2004 and 2004-2008), Vladimir Vladimirovich could go the way of the Romanovs . . . violently.
Many commentators are warning the president that taunting demonstrators, who have been in the streets demanding radical reforms to the political system, and using force against protesters, as he did in the first three days of his mandate when about a thousand people were arrested in Moscow alone, could lead to the radicalisation of the opposition until the point of no return.
In Tsarist Russia, the Bolshevik movement was radicalised by years of repression under Nicholas II, as the magazine Foreign Policy recently pointed out. In such situations, and Russian history bears this out (not only in 1917 but also in 1991), there is a risk that the country's leaders might view overtures to grassroots movements as a sign of weakness, whilst the opposition might move from demanding reforms to a total overhaul of the system. If this were to happen, paralysis would eventually be followed by a system-busting revolution.
In fact, extremism is taking hold inside the anti-Putin camp as events last Sunday in Bolotnaya Square show. Increasingly, the grassroots want real action. The time for poking fun and heaping scorn on leaders at rallies pre-arranged with the authorities is over.
For protest leaders, Putin's new mandate is a throwback to the reign of the last tsar. On Twitter, environmentalist leader Yevgenia Chirikova compares the clashes in Bolotnaya Square to the tragedy of Khodynka Field in 1896, which cast a curse on Nicholas II's incoronation.
The collapse of a platform set up for the celebrations of the new emperor, in a field just outside Moscow, sparked panic in which thousands died or were injured.
The deadly crush in Khodynka was seen as an omen announcing the future tragedies that marked Nicholas' reign until the October Revolution and the killing of the entire imperial family in 1918.
Although Putin is back in command in the Kremlin, his charisma has lost its lustre. According to political scientist Gleb Pavlovsky, Russians cannot forgive him for playing musical chairs with Dmitri Medvedev four years ago, as he himself admits today, and for the large-scale fraud in last December's parliamentary elections that led to Russia's 'snow revolution'.
This time, if he wants stability as he said during his election campaign, he must be more president and less tsar. In fact, troubles are brewing outside of Moscow and St Petersburg. Even regions far from the capital are becoming hotbeds of social and political activism, and certainly not to the benefit of the ruling United Russia party, as a new report by a Kremlin strategic think tank will show.
Social peace rests on a shaky balance linked to the evolution of the economic crisis, analysts say. Putin is facing a country that is no longer willing to exchange stability and growth for silence and loyalty to Moscow. A majority of voters (63 per cent) chose him because there were no credible alternatives.
At a macroeconomic level, the Russian Federation has withstood recent crises and the country's GDP grew by 4.2 per cent last year. However, with government spending at 37 per cent of GDP in 2011, two thirds of which from oil and gas exports, the situation is indeed dangerous, at a time when markets in Europe are weak and oil prices, uncertain.
In order to fulfil the populist promises he made during the campaign (more money for families, military, researchers and pensioners), Putin must hope for oil to average between US$ 140 and 150.
In his last address as prime minister, he said that security and population growth are the two main challenges facing Russia. The country, he stressed, must develop its far Eastern region, diversify its economy and become the leading power in the Eurasian region. These are goals of a real tsar, if the people would let him.
For now, the opposition in the streets is divided and has no one real leader. For experts, Putin should use the situation and meet the challenges by adopting the reforms Russia needs to become a modern nation (fight corruption, independent judiciary, better climate for investments, infrastructures).
From the first signals in his new mandate, it appears however that Vladimir Vladimirovich is deeply set in the old way of exercising power, just like the last emperor of Russia.
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18/07/2018 19:19
