August 22, 2019
NEOLIBERALISM ROLLS ON:
Protests in Russia Show How the Political Environment Has Changed: Nikolai Petrov speaks to Jason Naselli about a new wave of protests against Vladimir Putin's government and what it means for the future of the Russian system. (Jason Naselli, 2019-08-16, Chatham House)
And to you, the key moment that has led to this was the furore over the pensions reform last year.Yes, absolutely.In 2011, there was general disappointment about Putin's announcement that he would try to move back into the presidency, and elections in December 2011 served the role of a trigger for the protests that followed. What went wrong for the authorities in 2011 was the fact that thousands of Muscovites were election observers and were confronted first hand by cheating and negligence.This time is similar, in that there were thousands of Muscovites gathering and giving signatures who now feel personally humiliated by the actions of the government.How does this situation play out in the run-up to the elections on 8 September and beyond?If it's right to say that this is not about the Moscow city duma elections but is a more important trend, then 8 September will not be the end of the story. To say nothing of the fact that in September, there will be elections in almost half of Russia's regions, including 16 gubernatorial elections. Moscow was not considered to be the most important battlefield - the city duma does not play any real role. In St Petersburg, there is a gubernatorial election that is much more important.I think the biggest problem is that the government did not learn lessons from its failures in elections last year. In 2018, for the first time under Putin, Kremlin-backed candidates failed in several regions. This should have pushed the Kremlin into changing their attitude towards elections. This didn't happen, and what is going on now in Moscow is just one sign of this. We will see many more serious problems in other regions, as government losses on 8 September have the potential to create again a new political atmosphere. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is blaming the West.This is not about any particular politicians coming to power. This is about the government failing to keep its system afloat. It could be similar to a certain extent to the recent Ukrainian presidential elections, where somebody from outside could come and change the political system, step by step. And the Kremlin, being aware of this, is tightening the screws.
Posted by Orrin Judd at August 22, 2019 12:03 AM