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Jewish World Review Sept. 27, 2011 / 28 Elul, 5771 Russia learns outcome of next March's presidential election By Dale McFeatters
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
As part of Russian leader Vladimir Putin's program of "managed democracy," he has managed to spare the Russian people such time-consuming and, in his opinion, unnecessary drags on the electoral process as debates, caucuses, primaries, conventions, campaigns and all those other gaudy fripperies of true democracy.
Over the weekend, Putin's party, United Russia, named him its presidential candidate, who is all but guaranteed a victory in a precooked election next March. Only mildly less surprising was the nomination of incumbent President Dmitry Medvedev as the next prime minister. Unsurprisingly in the scripted and rubber-stamped proceeding, there were no dissenters.
Medvedev became president four years ago when Putin reached the term limit of a maximum of two consecutive terms. He stepped in to take Medvedev's place as prime minister. The Kremlin assured the Russian public that this was no cynical ploy to install a placeholder for Putin, a fiction that Putin demolished this weekend when he said the swap had been agreed to "several years ago."
The handoff was not totally seamless. Russia's respected finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, who is credited with successfully navigating Russia through the 2008-2009 economic downturn, said he would refuse to serve under Medvedev. Kremlin politics remain opaque, but a popular supposition is that he wanted the prime minister's job for himself.
Under Putin's "managed democracy," he has managed to eliminate any serious political opposition by outlawing certain political parties, barring certain candidates from the ballot and forcibly breaking up opposition rallies. He has also managed to gain control over Russia's broadcast channels.
Since the presidential term was recently extended to six years, Putin could conceivably serve another 12 consecutive years, making him the longest-serving Russian leader since Stalin. And, at 72, he would still be a mere youth by the standards of the old Soviet Union.
Putin is intensely image-conscious, regularly photographed in a variety of masculine pursuits and, to celebrate his nomination, he seems to have had a face-lift, reputedly his second, at age 58. For a glimpse of his somewhat unnerving new incarnation, check out this link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8788727/Vladimir-Putins-face-sets-web-alight-with-surgery-claims.html.
Putin is popular with the Russian public, for bringing about stability, a measure of prosperity and an end to the Chechen war. But the prosperity is fragile, resting almost entirely on oil and gas revenues, but these can be extremely volatile. The Kremlin's tendency to grab prosperous enterprises for its friends has driven off foreign investment and caused capital to flee the country. Russia faces severe demographic challenges because of a low birth rate, premature deaths and ethnic encroachment along its eastern borders.
A Putin presidency could be problematic for the United States. He has cooperated on some issues -- such as allowing U.S. supply flights to Afghanistan; and stalled on others -- like further nuclear disarmament; tried to bully the U.S. into abandoning an Eastern European missile defense against Iran; and showed himself capable of heavy-handed meddling in the former Soviet republics, especially Ukraine.
Until the new president proves us wrong, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates' judgment on Russia's government will have to stand: "an oligarchy run by the security services."
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