And what, in fact, is terrible?

The democratic opposition is organized - and the Kremlin is organized. The opposition began filming one hundred twenty -fifth series of the political series “On the Union”, and in the Kremlin they work on the RIMAC of the Constitution, which will be submitted to the people for a referendum by June 12. The essence of the project is simple: the constitution will be changed, the republic will be made by parliamentary, not the presidential, president will be put a puppet, and Putin will become the leader of the ruling party and the prime minister.

"The end of democracy?" - You ask.

Yes, in no case.

Putin cannot leave. Otherwise, he and his environment will have to be responsible for too much: for Yukos, for the monstrous failure in Beslan, for Blagoveshchensk, for the purchased positions and the seized property.

But the fact of the matter is that, facing the need to maintain power, the regime put himself in a situation in which there is no good solution.

Theoretically, there are three solutions.

The first option is the successor. There are many reasons why such an operation is impossible, but here is the main one: any successor in such a situation begins with the destruction of the one who put it. President Putin loves insignificant people around him - and the more insignificant a person who has risen upstairs helping, the less gratitude and more torn from the soul of a cry: “Yes, this is so wonderful, and you forced me to lick my boots for eight years!” The one who licked your boots will never forgive you their taste on his lips.

The second option: a referendum on the extension of the powers of the President up to 7, 10 and so on years. Everything is fine in it: but after such a referendum, President Putin will never call to have breakfast with Bush. There will be only oaks with him to have breakfast with him.

And President Putin loves to have breakfast with his friend Bush and dinner with his friend Schroeder.

And finally, the third option. The one that is planned to be implemented. To make a republic from the presidential parliamentary, the post of prime minister to provide the leader of the winning party and leave President Putin the eternal prime minister under the nominal president. Who said that we are not democracy? In Germany, everything is arranged in the same way.

The opposition from this option is in gloom. Absolutely in vain.

This option has one small flaw. Called - elections.

United Russia is not at all such a popular party. For that matter, President Putin is much more popular: the Rating "EDRA" always dragged in the Putinsky wake with a lag of 20-30%.

United Russia is not a party like the CPSU or the NSDAP. This is an amorphous mass. Partially, it consists of merchants who bought a place in the list (good, membership in Osra gives a strong immunity: there is an unspoken ban on the criminal prosecution of members of Osra, etc.) partially from gray personalities who were there at the dawn of the party’s formation.

There are intentionally absent politicians in Oser. And then: you cannot at the same time have any interesting public party, and a convenient tool for pressing the buttons. Therefore, “EDRO” often fails in the elections even in fully controlled regions - as in the Nenets AO. Yes, governors are almost all members of United Russia. But in 90% of cases, they enter this party, already being governors, and do not become governors, being its members.

“United Russia”, like a weight, will pull Putin down, and not up.

"But what does it matter?" - He will ask a dull opposition-intelligence. "It is important not how to vote, but how they count." Absolutely true. But if the opposition allows him to be considered Kremly, there is a road there.

If the judge is impartial, the battle can be won by points. If bribed - only by knockout. But the boxer who says that with a bribed judge, the battle cannot be won at all. Such a boxer is simply not strong enough. He exhausted his strength on the set of the above endless series.

If people are ready to vote for the opposition, but are not ready for indignation when the voices are tapped, the price of such an opposition is worthless.

If the opposition is ready to drag around the television show, but is not ready to go out onto the street, the price of such an opposition is a muffled.

If the opposition is ready for the elections and is not ready for the revolution, this is not an opposition. This is Yavlinsky. Or Chubais.

If you look at all the last democratic revolutions in the post -Soviet space - whether in Georgia, Abkhazia or Ukraine, it becomes obvious that the impetus for them was just elections. The party in power turned out to be not popular enough to captivate the hearts of voters, and is not physically strong enough to impose on them their will with batons.

The Kremlin quartet can endlessly rearrange constitutional chairs, but it will sound only until the people agree to consider his game to be music.