Focus on Russia: Opposition is Disunited!

-DR. ABDUL RUFF

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US and European strategists, as their wont to  give nomenclatures for new developments, say the world, after the so-called Arab Spring and assassination of Libyan leader Col. Qaddafi by the Obama agents,  is now witnessing a Russian Spring this winter with strong anti--Kremlin protests. The Kremlin has readily called all this as western mischief. But the west insists that what was witnessed in Russia, especially in Moscow and St Petersburg,on 4 December was a return of live politics to Russia, a politics that everyone thought was comatose. Russia witnessed the kind of pro-democracy rallies that the cities had not seen since the rough and tumble of the early 1990s for a different reason.

The nation wide protests in Russia against the Putin-Medvedev leadership engaged in rigging the recent parliamentary polls have taken the Kremlin bosses by rude shock as they never expected any protest against the strong presidency  for protecting  the  so-called national interests.

Economic crisis, political stagnation and corruption have turned the many people against the regime.These people are a minority, but an increasingly influential one in the big cities, which is where real politics happens in Russia. These people are the future of Russia and the Kremlin has lost them, irrevocably.

Russians in the last phase of Soviet  rule protested against  rampant corruption in the country and misbehavior of  bureaucracy towards the people. They had indeed expected a free but  better life under the post-Soviet system in new Russia, but they are now frustrated because the  corruption, crime and bureaucratic  arrogance have remained intact and bureaucracy cum oligarchs literately rules the nation.  People's existence has become more pathetic in society as more and more poor emerged from the misgovernment of the nation.  

Popular protest against the polls gave went to their growing distrust and anger. Obviously, the Kremlin is bit worried now. President Dmitry Medvedev, without mentioning  about the  lowering standards of Russian life, just  announced a few marginal political reforms this week, but many demonstrators say it is not enough. Medvedev proposed to hold direct elections of regional governors and simplify the procedure for registering political parties, but protesters say the concessions do not go far enough.

Russia's opposition, without any unity among them,  is holding rallies to protest against what it says were rigged elections on 4 December. In the first of the day's rallies in the far eastern city of Vladivostok, regional MP Artyom Samsonov said the election results should be cancelled. In the capital alone, organizers say some 50,000 people are expected to gather on Sakharov Avenue. They are demanding a re-run of the poll, which was won by the party of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin - but with a much smaller share of the overall vote. In Vladivostok, demonstrators carried posters calling for  Putin to be put on trial. Saturday's rally in Moscow - authorised by the authorities - is being organised by a coalition of opposition forces.

Some 47,000 people have already vowed on Facebook to attend, and another 10,000 say they may join the demonstration. Among those attending the event will be prominent anti-Kremlin blogger Alexei Navalny, following his release from prison after taking part in another demonstration in Moscow on 10 December. Organisers said that as many as 50,000 people rallied on that day, in what was the biggest anti-government protest since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The opposition has been encouraged by their little success, forcing the Kremlin on the backfoot. However, one of the main problems for the opposition is that there is no single leader able to unite it.

According to the official results of the elections to Russia's Duma, the ruling United Russia party saw its share of the vote fall from 64% to 49%, though it remains easily the biggest party. But there is a widespread view, fuelled by mobile phone videos and accounts on internet social networking sites, that there was wholesale election fraud and that Putin's party cheated its way to victory. The Kremlin denies the claim.

December's vote can be seen as a kind of "ground zero" for Russia's presidential elections, scheduled for March 2012. This election turned out to be a de-facto referendum on Vladimir Putin's United Russia party and on his decade in power. Vladimir Putin is widely expected to win presidential elections in March albeit with reduced margin. Putin might go all out to return to the presidency by all means, including illegal manipulations, if necessary. The state-controlled still TV still plays a decisive role

Though lost some credibility, Putin's United Russia is still the strongest party and unless all opposition parties get united to face it by projecting a united opposition leader as presidential choice, the opposition  would only aid the onward march of Putin-Medvedev duo.