TAKING TO THE ROAD WITH PUTIN

As anticipated, the Russian presidential elections on 4 March did not cause much of a stir. The reason the voting was so predictable was that there was no real alternative to the candidate of the party in power, Russia's incumbent Prime Minister Vladimir Putin - at least, compared with the other four candidates. At the same time, the events during the election campaign and after the ballot itself confirmed that Russia does need serious reforms. And mainstream politics with all its inherent variety of opinions and at times fierce debate was back, showing that the great northern power had embarked on a new stage of democratization.

Percentage of votes and inevitability of change

According to the Russian Central Electoral Commission, Vladimir Putin received 63.75% of the vote, or 45 million votes of the electorate. His main rival - Communist leader Gennadiy Zyuganov - got 17.18% and the billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov was third with 7.92%. The leader of the Liberal Democratic Party - Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, a traditional participant in presidential election campaigns - got 6.22%, and, finally, fifth with 3.85% was the head of A Just Russia, Sergey Mironov.

The results of the ballot showed that there would be no second round in the Russian presidential elections. Everything passed off peacefully, in the main. Perhaps the only surprise was that Zhirinovskiy, who came third in the presidential elections in 2000 and 2008, was fourth this time. In this connection, Mikhail Prokhorov's entry into the Russian political process could be seen as something new. And it does not matter whether he was playing his own political game or, as his opponents claim, was merely another of the Kremlin's political-technological products (like Mironov, for example) who were called in to demonstrate the pluralistic nature of democracy in the "Putin period". In any event, it is clear that it was the electorate (mainly those of liberal views) who had grown tired of the usual leaders who voted for Prokhorov. Not to mention Mironov, whose status as outsider at the current elections was virtually never in doubt from the very outset. The A Just Russia leader only had to take part in the elections, thereby indicating his presence in the systemic political process (enough to ensure the relevant privileges and the stable presence of the Duma faction).

Nor were there any serious attempts to "sweep away this authority" in the event of Putin being declared the winner at the end of the first round. Because this was not only what the Kremlin was threatened with by the left- and right-wing radicals, but also LDPR leader Zhirinovskiy whose arrogance disappeared once the preliminary results of the ballot were declared (clearly, realization that the party itself was finished should it be reduced to the ranks of a radical opposition outside the mainstream had taken its toll).

In point of fact, the authorities themselves were worried beforehand if events would flow into a predictable and favourable channel. Immediately after the elections, when Putin's victory had become known, the winner, together with the incumbent president, Dmitriy Medvedev (by all accounts the future prime minister under President Putin), arrived in Manezh Square where he held a rally with 100,000 of his supporters. The latter saw their leader in a new role - "with tears in his eyes" as in the old Soviet song "Victory Day". Putin modestly admitted some time later: "Yes, the tears were real. It was windy…" But few people doubted that Putin's image and his victory speech showed that the results of the elections justified the victor's expectations with interest.

As far as the opposition in Bolotnaya Square are concerned, they had originally decided not to recognize any results of the elections. And even if there is some truth in their position (the left wing of the opposition camp claims that about 15% of the votes were falsified, alluding to results in the regions which traditionally vote for the party in power as virtually "the whole people"), clearly the anti-Putin movement does not have the resources to change the situation in their favour. So the Kremlin was confident that the "Bolotnayas" would rally for a while and then calm down.

Symptomatic in this sense were the relatively impressive opposition rallies in Moscow and a number of other towns in the days following the elections, especially on Saturday, 10 March. The demonstrators demanded the annulment of the results of the parliamentary and presidential elections and promised to continue their street rallies. They even threatened to stage an act of protest on 7 May, the day of Putin's inauguration. But all this was merely post-election posturing which is traditional for countries in the former USSR which will have no real impact on the developing political scene. A sign of this was the refusal by Gennadiy Zyuganov, Russia's main opposition leader, to recognize Putin's victory by virtue of the "illegitimacy, dishonesty and lack of transparency of the elections".

However, the CPRF leader, despite his uncompromising stand regarding recognition of Putin's victory, still said that he supports the settlement of grievances by way of dialogue. And this is another argument in favour of a relative stability in the current political system in Russia.

Dialogue in Russia is a vital requirement of today, because it is not only the opposition but the party in power that realizes that the tangle of antagonism in the country must be unravelled as quickly as possible. They also realize that support for Putin by the majority of the electorate does not mean that the people are opposed to change. On the contrary, it shows that society wants change in conditions of stability and not a radical demolition of the existing system.

Combination of "-isms" and determination to overcome problems

The need for a swift breakthrough in solving economic problems fraught with a sharp exacerbation in social contradictions faces the Russian authorities in a number of priority strategic tasks. At the same time, increasing social activity, as a consequence of which thousands of people took to the streets unhappy about the current state of affairs in the country, makes certain changes in the state's political image inevitable, too. The authorities had already agreed to a change in the vertical power structure, in the context of which the election of governors would be restored.

But most importantly, for the first time in his 12 years as president and prime minister, Putin published articles which were very reminiscent of a key-note declaration. In them one could clearly see an ideologically worded combination of patriotism and liberalism, conservatism and socialism. In other words, in essence Putin's programme reflected the conditions which signified his victory at the elections and drew the electorate towards him. The latter is far from being a clear ideological swing towards one "-ism" or another, but it wishes to see in state policy all the best things that conform to the main political currents in today's world, projecting them, naturally, on to Russia.

At the same time one needs to bear in mind that key element in the electoral support for Putin which was the considerable slump in his popularity in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other major cities where he failed to clinch victory. That is why it is difficult not to agree with he claims that in the next few years Russia will be ruled by a president elected by the provinces and the ethnic republics out of spite for the growing middle class in the major cities, a president, who will be forced to rely on that section of society which has become accustomed to depending on the state sector of the economy. And this could focus Putin even more on the need to conduct a socially-orientated policy. Moreover, there are grounds to believe that the provinces supported Putin precisely because of his frequent recent left-wing promises.

It is most likely that Russia's foreign policy will soon be noted for its attempts to unravel delicate knots. By this I mean, first and foremost, the growing contradictions between Russia and the West which will start to warm up by the following message of the Euro-Atlantic community relating to the very fact of Putin's presidency - his victory at the elections, although it may have been legitimate, was achieved at dishonest elections (because of falsifications and excessive use of administrative resources in favour of the candidate from the party in power). 

In essence, disharmony in positions between the West and Russia is evident in all topical questions of international politics, in particular Syria, currently the most critical problem. As is known, Russia is blocking the adoption in the UN Security Council of a resolution which could give momentum to foreign interference in Syria's internal affairs. Although the US State Department has expressed the hope that after the presidential elections the Kremlin will review its position on the Syrian problem, the Russian foreign ministry made it clear that this would not be the case. "Russia's position with regard to a settlement in Syria has never been subjected to political considerations and is not determined by electoral cycles, unlike some of our western counterparts," the Russian foreign minister said.

A similar contradiction between the positions of Russia and the West could also be seen in the problem of Iran. Significant from this point of view is the idea expressed by Putin in his pre-election article "Russia and the changing world" that the international community could have recognized Iran's right to carry out uranium enrichment by placing Iran's nuclear programme under the all-embracing guarantees of the IAEA.

The discrepancy in views on topical world problems between the West and Russia, which is going through the stage of returning Putin to the presidency, will, undoubtedly, be one of the defining factors of international politics, on a par with the frank reflection of the expression of will of the Russian people, who have placed their stakes on their incumbent prime minister not only with their sights on overcoming domestic problems but also strengthening Russia's positions as a great power in the world.