Rallies in Russia today will explore whether the opposition can really test the prime minister
RIVAL POLITICAL rallies in Moscow are expected to attract up to 100,000 people today – one month before a presidential election that looks certain to return Vladimir Putin to power.
Supporters and critics of Putin, who has served as prime minister since constitutional limits forced him to step down from the presidency in 2008, will gather in different parts of Moscow to express contrasting views of the former KGB agent, along with visions for Russia’s future.
Organisers of both the pro- and anti-Putin rallies hope to attract at least 50,000 people to their competing events, even though the temperature in Moscow is forecast to stay below –15, and Russia’s chief doctor has advised people to stay at home.
Today is a major test of whether the eclectic opposition movement can sustain its challenge to Putin, and withstand attempts by his allies and state media to portray the dissenters as spoilt Moscow brats who have little in common with “ordinary” Russians.
Tens of thousands of people attended two protests last December against alleged ballot-rigging by Putin’s United Russia party in that month’s general election, and more broadly against his planned “job swap” with President Dmitry Medvedev and rampant corruption among officials.
Though they were Russia’s biggest protests since the last days of the Soviet Union, Putin mocked those who took part, saying he mistook their white ribbon symbol for a condom and compared them to the foolish, self-regarding Bandar-Log monkeys of Kipling’s Jungle Book.
But while Putin derided his critics as puppets of the US, devoid of serious leaders and proposals, the avalanche of promises he issued suggested he was nevertheless unnerved.
He and Medvedev quickly pledged to liberalise Russian politics and its moribund, state-dominated media, to modernise the economy, and to crack down on graft.
Putin’s critics, foremost among them charismatic anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, say they have heard it all before, and accuse officials of ignoring evidence of vote-rigging in December while planning more of the same in the March 4th presidential ballot.
Surveys predict Putin will win that election easily, but analysts say in order to ensure legitimacy he must take more than 50 per cent in the first round and so avoid a run-off.
A second-round battle, probably against communist Gennady Zyuganov, would allow for more opposition protests and, crucially, show Putin’s popularity was on the wane, eroding his power and causing Russia’s political, business and security elites to question whether he was still the best man to protect their interests.
With no hope of ousting Putin in the poll, the liberals’ best hope is to force a run-off by undermining him with protests and making vote-rigging such a hot topic that his supporters cannot tweak the results to ensure he wins in the first round.
Putin and United Russia – labelled the “party of crooks and thieves” by Navalny – are intent on discrediting an opposition movement which, in spanning the entire political spectrum, is bonded by little but a loathing for the ruling clique.
Organisers of today’s pro-Kremlin rally have chosen as its symbol a fist crushing an orange snake – reinforcing their claim that Putin’s critics are akin to the US-backed, pro-western politicians that launched Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution.
While Putin has been meeting factory workers to show solidarity with the masses, his allies have depicted his opponents as a privileged few and dubbed them the “mink collars”.
In fact, most of the protesters come from a middle class that is re-emerging in Moscow and other cities and who, while not wealthy, are now secure enough to value political choice and the possibility of change over endless guarantees of stability.
The average miner, farm worker or pensioner in provincial Russia, however, does not share their craving for less predictable politics.
When hundreds of opposition supporters drove through central Moscow in a slow convoy last weekend, United Russia member Vladimir Medinsky called it a “demonstration of the satisfied” by people “who even protest in comfort: with the air conditioning set to +20 degrees when it’s –20 outside”.
Today will show whether, as popular author and opposition activist Boris Akunin said, Putin’s critics are “ready to defend their sense of dignity – in any temperature. The Kremlin propagandists say we can only make a noise on the internet or in a warm car. Well, let’s see if that’s true,” Akunin added.
“This regime doesn’t hear us, it’s deaf. So we have to shout louder. The more of us who come out . . . the louder our voice will be. And to hell with the cold.”