Paul Goble
Staunton, Sept. 21 – Putin sought to use the just-completed Duma elections to demonstrate the legitimacy of his system and its stability at a time of geopolitical confrontation and to unite society around the federal center and himself personally, the Main Theme portal says.
At one level, he has achieved both; but the way he has chosen to do so while elevating his position within the Russian political system still further guarantees that Russia will face more problems when he passes from the scene and a new leader has to be chosen, it argues (temaglavnoe.ru/russia/32285/).
Instead of allowing the elections to be the occasion for a reset of the political agenda by allowing for new groups to gain a larger voice at the cost of a lesser one for those now dominant, Putin used a variety of means including massive falsification and repression to keep things just as they were, with United Russia even stronger and outsiders still outside.
That works for the Kremlin leader now because his system is based on arrangements in which he is the arbiter of disputes between different groups, none of which can directly challenge him because to do so would be to call the entire existing system into question and threaten their own positions and power.
But a system that doesn’t allow for evolutionary change faces the possibility of revolutionary change when the key actor passes from the scene. So what appears to many to be a new consolidation in fact is at best a temporary phenomenon and opens the way to deeper fragmentation when Putin goes.
That must worry the current Kremlin leader; but it certainly worries him less than the prospect that his own power will be diminished while he is still in office and thus lead to a situation in which one or another group among Russian elites may conclude that he has become weak enough to challenge directly.
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