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March 3rd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
The authorities have done their best after their initial shock to divide their
opponents. The line-up of the accepted presidential contenders has been so
managed as to make things easy for Mr Putin.
He has, in an attempt to regain the initiative, made a series of statements as
to his plans as President for the 2012-2018 term. Liberal words in these are
counterbalanced by familiar claims about his past achievements, leaving the
overall flavour as an offer of more of the same, salted by the assertion
that without him, chaos will come again.
This will not persuade those now opposed to him and his regime to accept the
continued rule of the Putin team as
legitimate.
He will on his return to the Kremlin have lost the appearance of
infallibility, which he had in the golden days of his first two terms. The
more the authorities are seen to have managed the election returns, the less
convincing his mandate will be.
Mr Putin’s instincts, and those of his close colleagues, remain for central
control. It is personalised power, however, that has fed increasing
corruption, meaning not just bribes but widespread abuse of power.
Resentment at that is deep and broad, extending beyond the disparate but
largely middle income groups that have taken to the streets of Moscow, and
other cities.
Protests about particular local matters, such as the destruction of
established forest areas in building the Moscow-St Petersburg highway,
violence associated with both criminal gangs and the police, or the failures
of individual regional governors have been a feature of the past two or
three years.
The 4 February demonstrations in Moscow calling for “honest elections”
were matched in some provincial cities but provoked mainly by local anger at
other matters.
The risk for Mr Putin and his group is that discontent within his core
conservative electorate will in the future find common cause with those
educated urban Russians who have turned against him, and against those
around him.
The regime has spent increasing sums on social security, notably pensions, on
internal security and on the military.
Mr Putin has promised in the course of the electoral cycle also to address
education, transport, and health, as well as to deliver on the 2014 Sochi
Olympics and similar public events.
The Russian budget will come under increasing strain, and is heavily dependent
on a high oil price.
Reining it back will be contentious, but necessary. Modernising the economy,
which has rightly been proclaimed to be essential, will not just be
difficult, but probably traumatic too: for a start, what is to be done with
Soviet era
enterprises that are in effect bankrupt? Tinkering at the edges is the most
that can safely be done, from the point of view of those now in power.
The foundations of a stable economy lie in accountability to independent
institutions, criticism by independent actors (notably of course the press),
an effective federal system – in brief, the rule of law.
One of Mr Putin’s favourite sayings is that the weak get beaten.
Russia’s governing structures could in principle be reinvigorated with a
process beginning with fresh elections to the Duma. But he cannot concede
this.
He is stuck, given the risks to him and his immediate colleagues of devolving
any significant degree of either political or economic authority, with the
hope that minor measures will allow the present system to carry on, and that
repression may reinforce discipline if need be.
Perhaps he knows it, in part.
Perhaps that is why when under pressure he lapses into abuse. Repeated
assertions that opposition to the regime has been organised and provoked by
outside powers, the United States of course first and foremost, planning
another Orange Revolution, this time not in Ukraine but in Russia is a case
in point.
This is wild stuff.
It may have its appeal to some in Russia. But on a bad day one can also
suppose that this is what the Putin team really believe.
The West can do little directly to affect the future course of Russia’s
domestic development.
But we should at least brace ourselves for its uncertain and quite probably
unstable future.
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