A Threat Defused? Instead of ignoring dissenters, the Kremlin has moved to engage them politically
Putin has recognized the danger of new opposition movements. Instead of ignoring dissenters, the Kremlin has moved to engage them politically. The divide-and-conquer strategy could well succeed.
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The bulk of the people protesting over election fraud was made up of an emerging middle-class. The Russian part of the global Facebook and Twitter family had facilitated this venture of thousands of urban Russians out to the streets where they demanded fair elections and urged Vladimir Putin to step down.
Their vigor presents an encouraging democratic move in a society which just weeks before seemed to be doomed to many years of socio-political lethargy. Indeed, an intent to clean up in the Russia house, in particular, to set up a nation-wide network of volunteers monitoring presidential elections March 4 testifies to the growing civic awareness among urban Russians, many of whom for the first time reach out beyond their consumers-only interests.
However, some leading figures of the protest movement emphasize a non-political character of the public quest for free and fair elections. Disillusionment, or distrust towards both the Kremlin and the established opposition are understandable as a moral outcry against corruption and stifling effects of managed democracy. But, taken from the perspective of the downfall of Putin’s system of power, as another major message of the protest movement, this praised political neutrality can lead to even more disillusionment in future.
The fair-elections movement has posed a serious challenge to Putin’s power. Since then his rhetoric has been changing from an attempt to ignore it up to his recent moves to involve its leading figures into a play by the rules set by Putin himself and preferably on the playgrounds of his choice. He has begun to score, sowing seeds of discord in the rows of opposition, old and new. Putin’s growing engagement with the new political challenge, his efforts to outperform its leaders by setting his own agenda are not aimed to placate outraged citizens or to turn them into his voters. The target audience of Putin’s stability mantra lies elsewhere, and it is the governors corps which is crucially important for his plan to seize the presidential throne via popular vote. They remain a key element in the election machine which is designed to bring out a necessary result.