What will happen after March 4

Vladimir Putin will continue to lead the country. At the same time, both supporters and opponents of Putin admit that Russian society has changed, so it is no longer possible to govern the state in the same style and with the same methods as Putin has done over the past 12 years. Experts interviewed by PublicPost gave their forecasts about what strategy of behavior Putin might choose in the new conditions and how society will perceive it.

Vladimir Putin will speak from the positions of a Russian nationalist and a Russian liberal. As strange as it may sound. Almost all of the initiatives that Dmitry Medvedev outlined were previously announced by Vladimir Putin at the late stage of his second presidential term. And so one day he could not restrain himself and was very sincerely surprised: “Why do you think that the ideas of modernization and innovation of the economy are the ideas of Dmitry Medvedev? I spoke about this even earlier.”

As far as I understand from communicating with Vladimir Putin, he is not a retrograde, not a conservative, and in no case is he going to tighten the nuts, because he knows very well that these nuts can easily be torn off if they are tightened too tightly. If Vladimir Putin spoke on Bolotnaya Square, and people did not know that it was Vladimir Putin, they would applaud him. There will definitely be personnel changes. Vladimir Vladimirovich promised political scientists that there would be significant personnel changes. We are talking about a 50% rotation of executive and other verticals.

I think that after March 4, some tension will arise in society, and very serious provocations will be carried out. But we understand perfectly well that, in principle, Vladimir Putin made a mistake when he decided to return to the presidential post, but with the contingent of candidates who are present in these presidential elections, this no longer looks like a big mistake.

I think that Vladimir Putin, as an intelligent person, cannot help but understand that certain changes have taken place in society. And he, of course, doesn’t like some of them: no ruler will like it when his people take to the streets, this is always a danger for any government. Vladimir Putin will react both softly and harshly. Gently means liberalizing legislation. On the other hand, in some issues he will act quite harshly in order to prevent destabilization and stop rocking the boat. Of course, it will be constantly said that this is being done within the framework of the law and in order to preserve the law.

Knowing Putin’s previous political course and his character, you cannot call him a soft-hearted person who will simply succumb to crowd pressure. But he will never agree to fight hundreds of thousands of people on the street; his traditional method is to strike at the very top, as was the case in business. He didn't persuade everyone, he punished person number one. The same will happen here. It seems to me that they will try to somehow neutralize the leaders or, at least, reduce their influence. I think there will be targeted attacks on those people who are trying to spin the situation in their favor. And with the people, Putin will be gentle and kind.

After March 4, society will behave quite traditionally. Some part will get scared and move away, and some part, on the contrary, will become embittered to fight.

Some kind of surge after the elections is still possible, but then, according to the Russian proverb, after a fight you don’t wave your fists. The fight will happen on the fourth, and no one will organize any mass unrest afterwards; no one needs a revolution. But no one can predict Putin’s behavior.

The compote that appears depends on the type of cabbage soup. This energy of active and caring citizens requires sewerage. For example, so that they do business. If there is detente in terms of the ecology of the life of active people, then there will be a joint movement and all protests of this kind will go away. Or there will be a decrease in chaos, regulation, clampdown, persecution - this, naturally, is a different situation. But in any case, there will be no axes on the streets.

Psychologically, it will be very difficult for Vladimir Putin to choose a dialogue strategy. Now he's looking at her. At the beginning of his election campaign, an article was published about the middle class. It is felt that he understands this topic with his mind. But it is very difficult for him to agree that the opinion of the people who took to the streets not only needs to be listened to, but there is a lot of rationality in it. It will be very difficult for him to admit that civil society has its own truth. This is largely due to his work experience, not only in the State Security Committee, but also in the mayor’s office of St. Petersburg. There was a very tough struggle between the mayor's office and the Petrograd Soviet. The council was such a big meeting where there were a lot of people who had a very negative attitude towards the executive power. Ultimately, the council was dissolved following the Russian Supreme Council. And these ideas remained: you can’t trust politics to politicians, you need to select politicians, you need to sift them, you need to leave the most constructive ones.

To what extent Putin can come to the conclusion that it is necessary to work in new conditions, where there is uncertainty and the right to make mistakes, where there is civil society, to what extent our government adapts to this changed world, further events will depend. There are two scenarios. One is evolutionary, but for this the authorities need to seriously change and agree with new realities. The second is to continue to act in the old way, in the familiar, psychologically more comfortable way, but with more significant and explosive risks. Now the government is at the stage of choice. Different signals are being sent to society, but what policy will be chosen - I’m not sure that the authorities themselves know.

If the authorities act according to the second scenario, then the system will be less flexible, the trust of the middle class in the authorities will not be restored, and this will lay the foundation for serious systemic conflicts in the medium term. If the interests of society are not respected, the most active part of society will respond negatively.