Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 24 – Rare is the
political leader who attacks as threats the very things that he has built his
system on, but Vladimir Putin has now done just that, arguing that official
corruption and rampant illegality threaten Russia’s stability, an accurate but
unintentionally self-damning diagnosis.
Speaking at the United Russia Party
congress, the Kremlin leader made this declaration, one clearly designed to win
popular support for his re-election by suggesting that he is now prepared to
take on two of the ills on which his system is based and without which it would
not have the shape it does (vesti.ru/doc.html?id=2969494).
Whether
Putin in fact is prepared to do more than condemn these phenomena except in a
highly selective fashion seems unlikely – his system is based on both -- but it
is good politics to stake out such a position. But what is interesting about
his remarks is that in the case of this evil as in others, he links the
problems directly to the stability of the country.
Indeed,
that is the most important aspect of his remark. Putin has made his career by
linking everything he does to that notion and thereby made it impossible for
anyone to challenge him because to do so is to challenge something that Russians
highly value especially after the turbulence of the 1990s.
And
consequently, while the Kremlin leader is likely to get credit for saying the
right thing here as elsewhere, it is almost certain that he won’t take any
action that would threaten his own power, however unfortunate for Russia that
power continues to be.
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