Translated material
Second force
In today's Russia, not only and not so much the election results are falsified, but the electoral process itself . Which is much sadder, because the government, by its attitude towards the people as a supplier of guaranteed votes in its support, excludes the population from creative processes. The communist regime, including due to such profanation of elections (as well as profanation of an effective economy, ideological values and basic principles of governance), unnoticed by itself, lost control over the USSR and lost the country. The authorities and the population simply found themselves in parallel worlds, living different lives, trying to intersect with each other as little as possible.
For some time, the main point of intersection between the state and the people in the Soviet Union, in addition to the Great Patriotic War - a real and fatal threat to the existence of the country - was political repression. But even purely physiologically it is impossible to exterminate one’s own people indefinitely. The executioners are also running out of strength. As a result, by the end of the existence of the USSR, it turned out that the authorities simply had no one to rule: the outwardly absolutely loyal and submissive majority only pretended to obey, while they themselves existed in their own survival coordinates.
The entire current quasi-stability is based on an unspoken pact of mutual indifference: the government does not touch the people, the people are not interested in what the government is doing. But it never happens anywhere that all people want the same thing, are equally satisfied with their position and treat their rulers with the same genuine delight. There is no such thing in Russia. That is why the policy of eliminating normal public policy (alas, a tautology is inevitable) from life, adopted by the current government, automatically leads to the rejection of people from this government who realize the futility of attempts to be in a constructive dialogue with it.
That is why the main, if not the only, meaning of the upcoming presidential elections is an attempt to return a normal political process to the country. And the only way to return this process (“it will not be returned from above”) is the appearance of a second force. The second force is a single candidate from the widest possible spectrum of opposition, who is able to openly declare a conscious refusal to continue the current course and offer Russia a different, democratic course.
Talk about the fact that the majority of the population likes the current policy is not fundamental in this case. The majority of people also liked the Soviet regime: at least few, if sociological surveys had been conducted then, would have dared to say otherwise. Moreover, any number of people who sincerely (or just to get rid of it) support the government is not a guarantee that the course of this government is correct. Moreover, for now we are not talking about the victory of a candidate who recognizes basic democratic values in the presidential elections, but only about the arrival of a normal democratic process in Russia, when the supreme power is not the monopoly center for determining the political agenda and the circle of participants in political life.
Such real opposition is also needed by the authorities themselves, because only in this way will the authorities be able to get a more adequate idea of the spectrum of opinions in society. The fact that smart people now simply don’t go to the polls and don’t watch state TV channels does not make power stronger. Only the presence of a real second force will reveal how many people are really ready to follow the first. The bureaucracy inside the vertical of power and the indifferent majority of the population outside are too unreliable a support; they will agree to any boss. And indifference cannot last long. With a long absence of visible improvement in life and real prospects, it inevitably turns into despair or protest against a boring routine.
The craving for change lives in individuals and in society as organically as the craving for stability. And if this stability does not rest on solid material foundations, and is even accompanied by attempts by the authorities to maintain the status quo at any cost, the desire for change can take the worst forms.
Russia does not need new revolutions, but new swamp stagnation under the guise of stability is not an option. In the presidential elections, we should finally see a competition between the country's development paths and real political forces. At least two. So that Russia has a chance to become a normal democratic country and not frighten the world with another reincarnation of a notorious empire.