People vs. Putin Power: The Russian Spring begins in winter

from In These Times:



People vs. Putin Power
The Russian Spring begins in winter.

BY Fred Weir


MOSCOW–The Russian frost broke last month, literally and figuratively, as a surprise December thaw brought the warmest temperatures in more than a century to Moscow and as two equally unexpected massive pro-democracy street rallies fundamentally challenged the Putin-era status quo. Though winter will undoubtedly return, few believe the political climate here will ever be the same again.

Ironically, those who attended the two protests to demand that an allegedly fraudulent parliamentary election be overturned were overwhelmingly the winners, not the losers, of the past decade under Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian leadership. Call them the Putin Generation: mostly young, social media-savvy, highly educated and relatively well-to-do urban professionals who have until now accepted the Kremlin’s “social contract,” which required only that they stay out of politics in return for the chance to build their careers, enjoy their private lives, travel wherever they wish and safely vent their feelings on the Internet.

Until last month, it seemed to be working. Putin’s Kremlin strategist, Vladislav Surkov, engineered the elaborate political system that has been dubbed “managed democracy,” featuring carefully-controlled electoral choices, a straitjacketed media and a civil society in which politically-active groups are either co-opted into the state-run Public Chamber or suffocated under tax inspections, computer anti-piracy laws or a variety of other pseudo-legal pretexts. In the 2003 and 2007 parliamentary elections, the pro-Kremlin behemoth United Russia was the clear victor.

But in the December 4 Duma elections, United Russia barely squeaked to a 49-percent win and even that, opposition parties and bloggers argued, was called into question by extensive fraud and shameless vote-rigging. The first small post-election protests, involving the usual liberal and left-wing dissident groups, were brutally put down by police. But then the unexpected happened. Police grudgingly granted opposition groups a permit to gather on December 10; at least 30,000 filled Bolotnaya Square. After police approved another permit for a December 24 rally, at least 60,000 swarmed onto barricaded Sakharov Avenue to demand the elections be cancelled and re-staged under fair rules and for Putin to abandon his plans to run for a third term in presidential polls slated for March 4. He is eligible for two more six-year terms. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/12526/people_vs._putin_power