Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 13 – Russians are
unlikely to go into the streets over election fraud this time around because
for almost all of them, Putin’s election is a foregone conclusion and one that
they aren’t ready to challenge because to do so would call into question their
own decisions to back him in the past, Moscow experts say.
But at the same time, the Social
Chamber in its annual report says that “Russian citizens are increasingly angry
about what they see as growing “social inequality” and the special privileges
in all walks of life that members of the Putin elite have given to themselves
while ordinary people suffer.
Such views among the Russian
population could spark protests in the coming months, particularly if the Kremlin
does something like the 2005 monetarization of social benefits that people
perceive as directed against them even as the Kremlin continues to protect the
well-being of the well-off.
Yesterday, Deutsche Welle reported
that few Moscow experts think that there will be protests over the election as
such. Everyone expects Putin to win, and the biggest issue will be the size of
participation, something the authorities may manipulate but without affecting the
outcome (dw.com/ru/выборы-и-протесты-ожидать-ли-россии-второй-болотной/a-41742509).
Dmitry Oreshkin
says that many of Putin’s supporters will be among those not going to vote because
of “the cognitive dissonance” many of them feel. We have “’risen from our knees,’” the
president tells them “but we haven’t begun to live better.” At the same time,
they won’t vote against him because that would call into question their past
support of the president.
The Moscow analyst says that he expects
the real level of participation in the March 18 elections will be “about 50
percent.” The authorities will manage to
boost that via administrative means to about 60 percent. But that won’t make people angry or lead to mass
protests the way violations of election law did in 2011.
Yury Krupnov of the Moscow Institute
of Demography completely agrees. He says that “the opposition is divided with
its leaders fighting among themselves; and therefore, they do not represent any
consolidated force.”
But Aleksey Titkov says that protests
could arise anyway if the authorities make a serious misstep, something like
the monetarization of benefits in 2005.
He says, however, that he is “not certain that in the next four months
before the elections, something similar will be done.” As a result, protests
now seem unlikely.
But the annual report on civil
society by the Social Chamber suggests protests could come from another
direction, not so much the management of the elections themselves than growing
popular anger about increasing social inequality where the rich get richer and
the poor poorer, Yekaterina Vinokurova of Znak
reports (znak.com/2017-12-12/obchestvennaya_palata_uvidela_chto_rossiyane_silno_nedovolny_privilegiyami_elity).
“Sociological
studies of recent times show,” the report says, “a growing social demand for
justice. No one considers unjust wealth that people have earned by their own
efforts.” But many are angry about wealth that has come to people less because
of what they have done than because of the loyalty they have shown to the Kremlin.
Already, the report continues, “citizens
are protesting against such state-created strata in numerous places from
medicine to justice and against privileges which give someone the chance to
avoid the general rules and ignore established norms.” And polls show that those at the top not
surprisingly think the social situation is far better than those at the bottom.
And
the Social Chamber report notes in conclusion that “the absence of dialogue
between citizens and the authorities is leading to social tensions and the radicalization
of protest.” In short, if Russians do go
into the streets, it is less likely to be about voting than about the ways in
which the Russian elite is taking care of itself at their expense.
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