Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 3 – The vote for
Brexit, the victory of Donald Trump, and the success of the Navalny
demonstrations are “the result of one and the same mistakes of the authorities
intheir communications with the population” and “a fall-off in trust in
political institutions” as well as “the growth of opposition movements ‘without
a positive agenda,’ Minchenko Consulting says
In a 13-page report released
yesterday (minchenko.ru/analitika/analitika_68.html) summarized by RBC today (rbc.ru/politics/03/04/2017/58de4d6d9a7947f6ac645050),
the Moscow analytic center says that as a result of this combination, there are
real risks that the liberal-democratic and left-wing protests could come together
as a serious force.
That coming together has not yet
happened and may never happen, especially since Aleksey Navalny has some
serious political baggage, but the authorities have made things worse for
themselves by failing to demonstrate discipline in analyzing and responding in
public to events like the March 26 protests.
Russian commentators on the report say
“the main guarantor” of the stability of the Putin regime is the high ratings
of the Kremlin leader, but there are three reasons why that may not be as
eternal as many think: the impact of the Crimean Anschluss is declining,
economic problems are mounting, and two problems raised by the massive quality
of the protests themselves.
On the one hand, they continue, many
Russians thought and had been encouraged to think by Putin’s team that the era
of demonstrations has passed; and on the other, there is a growing fear among
young people that “they not only were born under Putin but will die under Putin
as well.”
All this means, the Minchenko
experts say, that it is critically important for the Putin team to come up with
attractive content for his 2018 election campaign, something they imply that
group has so far failed to do and to ensure that the messages of the authorities
are thoughtful and coordinated rather than in conflict.
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