Putin's critics use the internet to say things that can not be reported by state media, writes DANIEL McLAUGHLIN
AMID GENERAL lethargy and bouts of extreme indulgence, Russia’s three-week Christmas holiday season offers time for reflection on the old year and contemplation of what lies ahead.
This year, the nation and its leaders have plenty to ponder. In recent weeks, the ruling United Russia party suffered a shock at the ballot box and has been publicly derided by tens of thousands of protesters, in the biggest anti-government protests that Russia has seen during Vladimir Putin’s 12 years in power, as president and now premier.
United Russia won the December 4th general election, but fell short of 50 per cent and attracted 15 per cent fewer votes than it did four years earlier. That equates to 12 million supporters lost despite the party’s domination of state institutions, mainstream media and big business.
Mr Putin belittled the protesters and played down their impact but his ally, president Dmitry Medvedev, was quick to propose reforms to the electoral system and media that are intended to soothe the long-held public frustrations that have suddenly burst into the open.
People are now demanding changes to Mr Putin’s “managed democracy”. But can he satisfy them while retaining enough control to return smoothly to the Kremlin in March’s presidential election, without unpleasant fraud claims and noisy public challenges to his legitimacy?
His critics want a rerun of last month’s election and a complete overhaul of the system; they are using the internet to denounce Mr Putin and his “party of crooks and thieves”, and using it to plan rallies and share information that would never be reported by state-controlled media.
“The Russian authorities see the protests as the most serious challenge to their power since the establishment of the present political regime in the early 2000s,” said Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. “In principle, some in the Kremlin view this as a matter of life and death.”
A recent poll by the respected Levada Center showed that 61 per cent of Russians expected 2012 to be a turbulent year, and the apparent calm of the holiday season is deceptive.
Russia’s rulers are assessing the danger posed by this modern, largely middle-class, internet-savvy new enemy. Anti-government activists, meanwhile, are planning their next moves and many ordinary citizens are wondering if the likes of corruption-busting blogger Alexei Navalny or tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov could this year become a real leader of a cohesive new opposition movement.
At the moment it is inconceivable that Mr Putin will not return to the presidency in March, borne along by the mass of Russians who still see him as a guarantor of stability, and protected by political, business and security service elites that trusts him to protect their interests.
It is easy to imagine, however, that he will re-enter the Kremlin under mounting pressure from a growing opposition movement that refuses to recognise his legitimacy, and which could make good on a recent pledge to bring one million Russians out onto the streets in protest.
Would Mr Putin then still accept mass dissent as “the inevitable price of democracy”, as he described it last week? Would the riot police continue to keep their truncheons sheathed, and would the nationalist youth groups that idolise Mr Putin remain on the sidelines as he was challenged? Could a president Putin undermined by major protests push ahead with plans for a “Eurasian Union” of former Soviet states, and how would he deal with Washington having accused it of funding opposition activists and triggering the recent demonstrations? The “reset” in US-Russia relations announced in 2009 is now on hold, with Moscow resisting US pressure for tougher action on Iran and Syria after being outmanoeuvred over Libya. The Kremlin is also threatening to deploy missiles near its borders with EU states if Washington presses on with plans for a missile-defence system in eastern Europe.
Russia still has a strong hand in international relations, however, with its United Nations Security Council veto and the huge oil and gas reserves upon which the EU relies. Some Western leaders may long to see the back of the pugnacious Mr Putin, but they will have to deal with him.
Mr Trenin predicts that “the next few months will be a thrilling period. Russia’s domestic politics are back – with gusto”.
In his New Year address, by contrast, Mr Putin depicted Russia as “a little island of stability”.
He also noted that 2012 is a year of the dragon in the Chinese calendar. He was born in such a year, he said, “and as a rule they have always been successful times for us”.
Many are those who would like to finally slay the political career of this particular Russian dragon. Far fewer would bet against him continuing to breathe fire in 2012 and beyond.
Former Irish TimesMoscow correspondent Seamus Martin's series Death of an Empire, on the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of the new Russia, begins on Saturday at 7.30pm on RTÉ Radio 1 and continues for the following four Saturdays at the same time.