This time, in Russia!
Don’t look now, but it seems the Arab Spring has made its way north to Russia! Thousands have shown their anger at the recently held elections where Vladimir Putin’s political party allegedly won through fraud. This puts Putin in a position to once more become president of the country for another twelve years via a swap with its incumbent president, Dmitry Medvedev. Putin was president of Russia from 2000 to 2008, and was in an acting capacity in late 1999 when Boris Yeltsin decided to step down. It seems Putin just loves to be in power. Just like someone we know.
Putin has stylized himself as not being the ordinary politician. Yes, he makes the usual political rounds, makes the normal political enemies and rules with a semi-iron fist. But he has a tendency to grab the headlines in a not so usual manner. He has been photographed without a shirt holding a fishing rod. He has a judo video tutorial. His image has been used to endorse products. He has his own brand of canned food. He has been shown dangerously close to wild animals, even shaking hands with a polar bear, something the secret service of other countries would never allow a sitting president to do. He has even driven a Formula One racing car! The list goes on and on. I bet some world leaders are just envious of what this man can and is allowed to do! Putin also enjoyed the highest approval rating of any world leader – 81% in June of 2007. His being able to improve the quality of life in Russia, coupled with all these bravado images that he just loves to pander, had put him there. But just like anything in this world, nothing lasts forever, even a good thing.
If Putin enjoys such a high approval rating, his party does not. And the possibility of another Putin presidency is not sitting all that well with Russians. So just like we did in ’86, just like what the Arabs have done this year, Russians have taken their gripes to the streets. And it seems to be snowballing. Even the much hated Russian state TV could not keep their cameras off the masses building up at certain parts of the country.
This is what politicians do not understand. Power should be limited. Absolute power should be at the hands of the people. Time and time again, the world has seen leaders who have stayed too long in power be driven out by their own people. The late President Corazon Aquino knew that very well, and made no attempt to perpetuate herself in power. There is a lot to be said about countries who allow their leaders to stay in power for so long. These are the people who eventually become suppressed and oppressed. To see this kind of protest in Russia speaks volumes of the change that they already long for. They have had enough of Putin’s United Russia.
The world will have to wait and see how this will develop. Whether it continues until it achieves its goal of true change, or it fizzles out in the Russian cold. Or worse, is put down by Putin, who is no stranger to doing things himself. We can only hope that peaceful change does occur, in a country with a history of violent change.
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