Vladimir Putin has won the battle of March 4. But he has lost the war. He cannot satisfy his own supporters. Nor can he win back those swelling the ranks of the opposition, who yearn for the justice, truth and dignity that his regime cannot provide.
The Kremlin propaganda machine will cite the cameras and computers installed at colossal expense in 80,000 polling stations to claim that this election was clean. Mr Putin won by a comfortable margin, but not an embarrassing one. He is not a despot like the dictators of Belarus and Central Asia, his supporters will say. He is a man who embodies the stability and progress of the past 12 years, a man who has put Russia back on the map, and who justly enjoys the support of the majority of the country's population.
(...)
Yet for all that, March 4 marked a fatal turning point for the Putin regime. Russian politics has awoken from its coma. Once people craved stability. Now they chafe at stagnation. They want answers to big simple questions, such as "where did the money go?"
Mr Putin has presided over a decade in which Russia had a trillion dollars (£600 billion) in extra oil and gas revenues. Yet the road network is reduced and public services are still dire, while his cronies enjoy grotesque prosperity. Full story...
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The Kremlin propaganda machine will cite the cameras and computers installed at colossal expense in 80,000 polling stations to claim that this election was clean. Mr Putin won by a comfortable margin, but not an embarrassing one. He is not a despot like the dictators of Belarus and Central Asia, his supporters will say. He is a man who embodies the stability and progress of the past 12 years, a man who has put Russia back on the map, and who justly enjoys the support of the majority of the country's population.
(...)
Yet for all that, March 4 marked a fatal turning point for the Putin regime. Russian politics has awoken from its coma. Once people craved stability. Now they chafe at stagnation. They want answers to big simple questions, such as "where did the money go?"
Mr Putin has presided over a decade in which Russia had a trillion dollars (£600 billion) in extra oil and gas revenues. Yet the road network is reduced and public services are still dire, while his cronies enjoy grotesque prosperity. Full story...
Related posts:
- The fabulous riches of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle...
- Putin and Medvedev share between them two dozen palaces, villas, mansions...
- Russian president Dmitry Medvedev spends £26m on luxury yacht...
- Vlad's army, Vladimir Putin's fanatical youth worshippers...
- The ruling elite in Russia commits crimes with impunity...
- Democracy is NOT freedom...
- The world is at the mercy of irrelevant pygmies like Berlusconi and Sarkozy...
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