During his second mandate Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to steer back toward Soviet ways on the domestic front while pushing through economic reforms in an effort to attract more Western investment, analysts say.
The 51-year-old former KGB agent swept to a crushing victory in Sunday's presidential election, Russia's third of the post-Soviet era, garnering 69 percent of the vote according to first exit polls.
After his first four years at the helm of the world's largest country, Putin has managed to accumulate astounding power reminiscent of the omnipotence of Soviet leaders.
A pliant pro-Kremlin party controls two-thirds of parliament, a new prime minister has no political ambitions, state-controlled media offer fawning coverage and former secret service colleagues are in top positions of power.
These lurches toward Russia's authoritarian past are likely to continue during Putin's second term, driven by a hawkish Kremlin clan known as the siloviki and supported by much of the population, analysts say.
If Putin's predecessor Boris "Yeltsin made two steps toward democracy, Putin made one step backward," said Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a respected analyst.
"These elections mark the end of the first 15 years of Russia's development that began with [last Soviet president Mikhail] Gorbachev," said Lilia Shevtsova of the Carnegie Moscow Center. "The old experiment is over."
"These elections will now legitimize a new experiment that will try to modernize the state through the use of the state bureaucracy," she said.
The siloviki advocate a so-called "managed democracy" route for Russia -- a market economy under a watchful eye of a powerful state.
The approach has popular support in Russia, where half of the population thinks that the country "always needs a strong hand," while only one-fifth oppose authoritarian power, according to a recent poll by Romir Monitoring.
"A lot of Russians want a repressive and authoritarian state," said Mark Urnov, an analyst. "They think that people must be afraid of the state in order to respect it."
The siloviki are opposed by a more liberal Kremlin faction, the reformers who say that a market economy cannot exist in an authoritarian system.
Putin has balanced the two groups during his first term, but there is disagreement over how he will proceed during the next four years.
While some say he will use his immense power to push through necessary and painful reforms, others think Putin will keep the balance of power until he anoints a successor toward the end of his second mandate.
"I think that in the second term we need to witness some form of democratization, but I do not believe that Putin is prepared for that," said Yevgeny Yasin, a former economy minister under Yeltsin.
Driving Putin's decisions during his second term will be a desire for Western investment to strengthen Russia's oil-dependent economy and for the former superpower to regain respect on the world stage.
"Putin wants to be a worthy world leader," Kryshtanovskaya said. "Russia's prestige is his personal prestige."
"I think the Western factor is the main limiting factor of authoritarian tendencies," she said.
An example, she said, is the Yukos affair, which culminated last year with the arrest and jailing pending trial of the oil giant's founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The arrest of a man who dared to openly challenge Putin, widely thought to have been pushed by the siloviki, sparked vicious criticism in the West and fears that Russia would move to renationalize assets.
"I think Putin was scared off by the Western criticism," Kryshtanovskaya said.
"There is no repression against other businessmen not because there isn't enough evidence ... but Putin understands that if he goes further along this path, there won't be Western investment, there won't be [full-fledged] membership in the G8."
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
RSS