Under Putin poverty has been reduced by half, a huge middle class has emerged, the natural resources has gone back to the people, defence budget up 50%, controll over the mafia conditions of the 90s. For these reasons he had about 70-80% approval rating. He also stands up to the West when we break international law and dont respect russian national security. To bring stability, safety and prosperity has been goal number one.
They have a democracy, but it can of course be improved. But they want a managed democracy with state involvement. And they do not want to take any lectures from America as it has plenty of faults.
America has two candidates for president and neither dear to question the legitamacy and survival of the emipire. There is little "free and unbiased" media which is obvious when Georgia attacked Ossetia, and every channel named Russia as the aggressor. America has no repect for international law and puts itself above the UN.
Russia does not want to be a part of this global dictatorship where America sets all the rules, who can be attacked and what laws apply to different nations. Russia wants a international law which all should follow. They offer friendship and trade with all nations, but if we continue to sponsor attack on them like we did in Georgia, put NATO up at their borders and build missile shield at their borders they will use any means to balance out the power structure.
From A Mouse To A Tsar
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The question now is whether any of the idealistic liberal has survived in Medvedev. Medvedev certainly approves of the new, bold role that Putin has carved out for Russia through a mixture of diplomacy, bullying and military swagger. "Russia has reclaimed her proper place in the world community," Medvedev said approvingly last month. "Russia has become a different country, stronger and more prosperous. People don't try to educate us like schoolchildren; they respect us." But there are signs Medvedev has refused to buy into some of the more noxious elements of the nationalist Russian narrative, which Putin's ideologues created to justify the crackdown on democracy. Medvedev recently told an audience of businesspeople in the southern city of Krasnodar that the interests of Gazprom in Europe should be promoted "calmly, without hysterics"—a marked contrast to Putin's tub-thumping brinkmanship. Rather than banging nationalist drums, Medvedev's main pre-election message has been more about improving the Russian economy than using Russia's resurgence to bully others. For instance, he has stressed the need to build small and medium-size businesses, and to slim down state involvement in private business. "Big business has big hopes that Medvedev will be more liberal, pro-Western, put the end to corruption and give business more freedom," says Alexander Shokhin, head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.
Last month a correspondent at NEWSWEEK'S Russian edition viewed a hand-edited copy of a keynote speech Medvedev delivered to civic and cultural leaders. Tellingly, Medvedev had struck two passages out of text prepared by Kremlin speechwriters: the first was the suggestion that Putin's new role as leader of the United Russia Party was a sign the "party system is growing stronger"; the second was a claim that the West is making efforts to arrange a democratic revolt in Russia akin to Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution. In their place, Medvedev wrote in words that resonated with those who hope Russia can change from a kleptocracy to something more closely resembling a European democracy: "Russia is a country of legal nihilism," he said. "No European country can boast such a universal disregard for the rule of law."
Such a frank admission of Russia's deepest systemic problem was a far cry from Putin's smugness and casual disregard for others who level the same criticism. Yet if Medvedev is serious about making Russia a law-abiding country, he will have to defy Putin: one of the roots of Russia's corruption is the formidable network of business ties that Putin's cronies have built up over their years in power. Dismantling them will inevitably put him on a collision course with his old boss. "Medvedev will have to fight [deputy Kremlin chief of staff Igor] Sechin's clan of former KGB men," warns Kirill Kabanov, head of Russia's National Anti-Corruption Committee. Moreover, says Kabanov, he'll have to tackle the "outrageously corrupt machine" of the Federal Security Service or "the entire state political structure will collapse under the weight of graft."
In the long term, there is the possibility that the one-time Leningrad liberal is willing to butt heads with his benefactor, even if he is the prime minister. "There are no two, three or five centers [of power]," he recently said. "The president is the ruler, and he can be only one, according to the Constitution." But more immediately, Medvedev will need to rely on exactly those security services and incumbent corrupt bureaucrats to keep himself in power. With Putin staying on, Medvedev will have limited scope to push his predecessor's pals out of their jobs. It seems for now, anyway, Putin is not going to let his young protégé forget exactly who elevated him from mouse to tsar.
© 2008
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