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Protests in Russia

Posted by: Linda Carbonell on December 24, 2011.

Vladimir Putin by Donkey Hotey, Creative Commons

As we ran around getting the last things done for the holidays, visiting relatives and friends, juggling the calendar for complex families, making reservations at Chinese restaurants, the Russian people were taking to the streets to protest the continued rule of Vladimir Putin and the manipulation of their democratic process to create a tandem dictatorship – Putin, Medvedev, Putin, Medvedev, train the next generation for when Putin dies, continue ad infinitum. They had elected Putin because the end of communism had led to chaos and lawlessness. They wanted order and stability. They got repression, widening gaps in income, recession, arrests on trumped-up charges, secret police in the streets and an oligarchy to replace the communist leaders and tzars of old. It was probably not a good PR move for one of Russia’s new elite to buy his little co-ed daughter the priciest apartment in New York for a cool $80 million.

Tens of thousands of Russians had signed up on-line to participate, and they showed up, all over Russia, waving flags and chanting “Russia without Putin” and “New elections.” Estimates of the crowd on Prospekt Sakharov (Sakharov Avenue), named for Soviet-era dissident Andrei Sakharov ranged from an official 20,000 to an unofficial 120,000. Speakers took to the stage, calling for the removal of Putin. Novelist Boris Akunin asked, “Do you want Putin to return to the presidency?” and the crowd roared “NO!”

Anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, one of the prime leaders of the protest movement, told the crowd, “I see enough people to take the Kremlin and the White House right now!” (Yes, their government headquarters is called the White House.) “But we are a peaceful force, we won’t do it – yet. But if the crooks and thieves continue trying to deceive us and lie to us, we will take it ourselves. It is ours!”

No date has been set for the next rallies, but it will probably be after the 10-day Christmas and New Year holidays. Russian Orthodox Christmas is January 7^th. The organizers are hoping to maintain the momentum until the Presidential elections in March. Putin had been considered a shoo-in for election to a new 6-year term. He used the four-year term of his disciple Dimitri Medvedev to get the presidential term extended from 4 to 6 years, a small way to bypass the two consecutive term limit in the Russian constitution and get the equivalent of three terms. By swapping the Presidency between them, Putin, directly and through Medvedev could control the country for a total of 36 years. In the parliamentary election the evidence of vote fraud was irrefutable and still, Putin’s United Russia party saw their parliamentary majority drop to 51%. If a new and honest election were held, there is a possibility that the party would lose its majority.

Putin is being reluctantly taught the most important lesson of his life – you can temporarily repress democracy, but once it is let out of the box, you really can’t put it back in.