After a decade of Vladimir Putin, dissenting Russians have found their voice, and the past month has presented the prime minister with his greatest challenge yet, writes DANIEL McLAUGHLIN
THESE WERE SUPPOSED to be halcyon days for Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. His party was expected to crush its opponents in a reassuringly predictable general election, paving the way for his glorious return to the Kremlin in three months.
As Europe and the US stumbled through political and economic crises, Russia would be calm, stable, orderly: proof that Putin had restored its health and dignity 20 years after the Soviet Union’s ignominious collapse.
But, after a remarkable month, Russia’s prime minister and former president now finds himself facing the greatest challenge of a decade in power.
The world is used to seeing the 59-year-old as the ice-cold former KGB spy, whether upbraiding oligarchs, ordering the elimination of Chechen militants, flipping a judo opponent over his shoulder or downing a Siberian tiger with a tranquilliser dart. But lately, and more than once, he has looked rattled.
In the run-up to the December 4th ballot he was booed by a big crowd at a sports event; days later, he grimaced when some MPs refused to stand for him in parliament; and then, on election night, he was stunned that his United Russia party had managed to lose some 12 million voters in four years.
The party still won, but the shock of shedding 15 per cent of its support since the previous election, and taking less than half of the overall vote, showed on Putin’s normally placid face.
Worse was to come. In the biggest rallies seen in Russia since the end of the Soviet era, tens of thousands of people denounced election fraud and berated Putin with a ferocity that was barely imaginable a few months ago. After a decade of political quietism, many Russians seem to have rediscovered their voice, and they are screaming defiance at Putin and his “party of crooks and thieves”.
The popular author Boris Akunin spoke for many when he wrote after a rally: “I have the feeling that we are at the very start of some big and (touch wood) positive changes. I’m glad that I came.”
For Putin, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was going to glide effortlessly back into the Kremlin in March, then potentially stay there until 2024 – and the ripe old age of 71.
Now things might not be so simple. Rather than giving Putin a chance to celebrate his achievements, the 20th anniversary of Soviet collapse finds Russia’s political landscape shifting under his feet.
Putin called the demise of the USSR “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. But it was also the making of him.
He was a mid-ranking KGB operative when communism crumbled, stuck in Dresden when Vienna or Berlin were the plum postings for German-speakers such as he.
Putin made his crucial career decision in 1991, when, rather than clinging to his job or moving to unfamiliar Moscow, he resigned from the KGB and returned to his native St Petersburg.
As the Soviet certainties were replaced with a wild and often violent “bandit capitalism”, Putin was given a job by Anatoly Sobchak, who had taught him law at university before becoming mayor of St Petersburg.
Putin earned a reputation as a good city administrator, establishing a network of contacts that still surrounds him today, and includes many top officials and businessmen.
His efficiency and loyalty won him admirers in Moscow, and in 1996 he was summoned to join the staff of President Boris Yeltsin.
Putin saw how the drink-addled leader was squandering power, allowing regional governors and young tycoons to acquire huge political clout at the expense of the state. He would reverse that process in the years ahead.
In 1998, Yeltsin made Putin the chief of the FSB – the main successor to the KGB – lending weight to the Russian adage that there is no such thing as a “former” KGB man.
In this role he again demonstrated loyalty – and ruthlessness – by helping orchestrate a sex scandal to oust prosecutor general Yuri Skuratov, who was making life difficult for Yeltsin’s allies.
“He has the psychology of a person from the special services,” Skuratov said of Putin. “His role was my neutralisation. While for us the law is god, for him the president is god. The interests of the state come first.”
Putin has always claimed to act in the interests of the state, whether driving troublesome oligarchs into exile or jail, invading neighbouring Georgia in 2008, propping up Kremlin-friendly Chechen warlords or dragging wealth and power back into government hands.
He rejects allegations of shady business dealings going back to his days in St Petersburg, and accusations that he has secretly acquired huge wealth while in office.
He keeps his wife and two adult daughters out of the limelight, and has dismissed stories that he was seeing a gymnast-turned- politician by telling tabloids to get their “snotty nose” out of his business; he ignores persistent whispers that his cheeks have been smoothed out by plastic surgery.
Putin treats such prying into his private life – and often simple criticism of his rule – as a kind of betrayal by Russian media. He recently denounced as “Judases” Russian NGOs that accept money from abroad, and accused the US of fomenting Moscow’s postelection protests.
Loyalty and patriotism underpin Putin’s vision for Russia, a vision that is echoed in the national anthem that he revived. It is the same tune as the Soviet anthem, but with new words.
Putin’s Russia is richer and stronger than Yeltsin’s, but corruption is worse than ever, violence is spreading through the Caucasus, social inequality is vast, and mainstream media and party politics are moribund. Under Yeltsin liberal tycoons lined their pockets; now Putin’s pals from St Petersburg and loyal security service men flourish.
For more than a decade, memories of the chaos and poverty of the 1990s were strong enough for most Russians to accept many ills in return for Putin’s promise of stability.
But that stability – and soaring oil and gas revenues – fostered a middle class that now wants a bigger say in its own future, more political choice and less graft, red tape and impunity.
Putin is still Russia’s most popular politician and the overwhelming favourite to return as president next year. But what was supposed to be a triumphant procession back to the Kremlin could now be a bumpy ride.
While supporters insist the world will now see “Putin 2.0”, others wonder if the man who called himself “a pure and utterly successful product of Soviet patriotic education” can handle an increasingly restless society equipped with the tools of the internet age.
“We’ll see the new Putin before the elections, 100 per cent. If nothing is done, the downward trend will continue. Putin must stop it,” said Sergei Markov, an analyst and former MP for United Russia.
But for some, like the novelist Akunin, Putin’s eventual downfall is already assured. “I am sorry for you. I say that without any sarcasm,” he wrote to Russia’s leader. “You don’t have to be Nostradamus to predict your future.”
