With inflation cooling down to a post-Soviet record-low of 3.8% and real wage growth improving, some may wonder why is there an expectation of growing opposition to Putin during his upcoming Presidency? His reluctance to implement structural reforms coupled with his refusal to openly tackle rampant corruption in Russia could be contributing factors – but election fraud in the recent elections, surely not
Almost six months ago (on September 24, 2011), while addressing his party’s members at a congress, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proposed that his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, should stand for the presidency in 2012. Clearly, this wasn’t a bombshell by any quarters; in fact, the announcement was quite expected. But that day, post the announcement, two things were more or less certain – Putin would win the elections and the opposition would protest the results. The definiteness in the above certainties was not because Putin was expected to win the March 2012 Presidential elections through fraudulent practices, but ironically because he was expected to win despite such practices. In other words, Putin’s popularity had held strong at such high levels over the past few years and especially as of recent times, that even international observers had expected quite a reduced form of ballot fraud.
It isn’t that Putin himself wasn’t aware of his massive popularity. His decision to allow the installation of more than 182,000 web cameras at 91,000 odd polling stations and admittance of thousands of independent, international election observers during the March 2012 elections should have convinced even critics that the man was changing. This is not to say that irregularities did not occur – a Chechnya polling station even documented a 107% voter turnout – but Putin’s final overall vote tally of about 64% matches closely with exit polls conducted by multiple agencies (like Public Opinion Foundation and All-Russian Public Opinion Research Centre) that forecasted that Putin would obtain around 58-59% of the polled votes. If at all Putin’s supporters abused the election process, to be fair, it couldn’t have mattered beyond a few handful of percentages in the final tally. And one really would be strongly given to believe that Putin would not have undertaken underhand election practices for such a puny advantage.
It’s abundantly clear that Russians en masse are supporting Putin’s candidature, more for the way he has stabilized the country from the pits it had reached in the 90s Yeltsin era, than for his dictatorial prances. Then why is there an expectation of growing angst in the upcoming Putin presidency? Like we said, election fraud surely can’t be the reason.
And even peddling Russia’s ‘impending economic downfall’ as the reason may, on the face of it, sound quite eccentric – while Russian real wage growth has returned to near double-digits (9% y-o-y in January 2012), inflationary pressures too have cooled down to a post-Soviet record-low of 3.8% in February. With 4.3% y-o-y increase in GDP in 2011, Russia’s economy has broadly even recovered from the global economic crisis. But a deeper look, and some questions around Russia’s remarkable growth, led clearly by ‘black gold’ (oil accounts for nearly 20% of Russia’s GDP, over 66% of its exports and 50% of its government revenues) surely start gaining locus standi.
Almost six months ago (on September 24, 2011), while addressing his party’s members at a congress, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proposed that his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, should stand for the presidency in 2012. Clearly, this wasn’t a bombshell by any quarters; in fact, the announcement was quite expected. But that day, post the announcement, two things were more or less certain – Putin would win the elections and the opposition would protest the results. The definiteness in the above certainties was not because Putin was expected to win the March 2012 Presidential elections through fraudulent practices, but ironically because he was expected to win despite such practices. In other words, Putin’s popularity had held strong at such high levels over the past few years and especially as of recent times, that even international observers had expected quite a reduced form of ballot fraud.
It isn’t that Putin himself wasn’t aware of his massive popularity. His decision to allow the installation of more than 182,000 web cameras at 91,000 odd polling stations and admittance of thousands of independent, international election observers during the March 2012 elections should have convinced even critics that the man was changing. This is not to say that irregularities did not occur – a Chechnya polling station even documented a 107% voter turnout – but Putin’s final overall vote tally of about 64% matches closely with exit polls conducted by multiple agencies (like Public Opinion Foundation and All-Russian Public Opinion Research Centre) that forecasted that Putin would obtain around 58-59% of the polled votes. If at all Putin’s supporters abused the election process, to be fair, it couldn’t have mattered beyond a few handful of percentages in the final tally. And one really would be strongly given to believe that Putin would not have undertaken underhand election practices for such a puny advantage.
It’s abundantly clear that Russians en masse are supporting Putin’s candidature, more for the way he has stabilized the country from the pits it had reached in the 90s Yeltsin era, than for his dictatorial prances. Then why is there an expectation of growing angst in the upcoming Putin presidency? Like we said, election fraud surely can’t be the reason.
And even peddling Russia’s ‘impending economic downfall’ as the reason may, on the face of it, sound quite eccentric – while Russian real wage growth has returned to near double-digits (9% y-o-y in January 2012), inflationary pressures too have cooled down to a post-Soviet record-low of 3.8% in February. With 4.3% y-o-y increase in GDP in 2011, Russia’s economy has broadly even recovered from the global economic crisis. But a deeper look, and some questions around Russia’s remarkable growth, led clearly by ‘black gold’ (oil accounts for nearly 20% of Russia’s GDP, over 66% of its exports and 50% of its government revenues) surely start gaining locus standi.
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