Paul
Goble
Staunton, June 8 – In advance of the
September elections when the acting Arkhangelsk governor must face the voters,
he and his regime have announced that they no longer back plans to build a dump
in Shiyes for Moscow trash; but most view this as a pre-election maneuver
rather than the end of that unpopular plan.
The fact that Aleksandr Tsybulsky
feels compelled to make such declarations only highlights just how unpopular
Moscow’s plans to build dumps in the north for its trash; but the near unanimity
of Russian commentary suggesting this is merely a feint means that he may gain
less from such statements than he hopes.
Instead, the Shiyes protesters
remain committed to maintaining their protest at the site; and others in the
region are so cynical about what their Moscow-installed rulers are saying, that
the upshot could be that this pre-election ploy will backfire on its authors,
reducing still further the level of support for them.
By backing away from such an
unpopular project, the powers that be have shown that they can be moved by
protests when there is an election in prospect. At the same time, however,
because most people don’t believe they really mean it, such statements will
only alienate the population further not only from the regional authorities but
from Moscow as well.
On this current move and the ways it
may backfire on those in Arkhangelsk and likely Moscow behind it, see among others
novayagazeta.ru/articles/2020/06/09/85773-razvod-po-severnomu,
dailystorm.ru/vlast/proshchay-shies-vrio-gubernatora-arhangelskoy-oblasti-pered-vyborami-ne-hochet-associirovatsya-s-problemoy-musornogo-poligona
and newtimes.ru/articles/detail/195038?fcc.
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