Translated material
: Not in the ranking of power
The rating of Putin-Candidate exceeded 50 percent. There is no one close and at all. However, the problem is not whether Putin will win on the first round, but what he will do next. The whole system is built in such a way that with force majeure, the authority rating can quickly overtake. And the citizens "woke up".
The All -Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) published the next election ratings of candidates for president of Russia. There is only one noticeable change, however, a more psychological properties: Putin’s rating exceeded 50 percent. This means, of course, Putin can claim to win the victory in the first round of the presidential election, no matter what happened with the rest of the candidates.
The remaining participants in the elected “race” (in quotation marks, for what a race!) They look like a purely statists: a close to Putin, a participant in the campaign Gennady Zyuganov received only 11 percent of “votes”, Vladimir Zhirinovsky - 9, Sergey Mironov - 4, Mikhail Prokhorov - 2.
You can reproach with the VTsIOM for excessive servility to the authorities, but the December polls of the Levada Center showed a similar picture, although not so favorable for “candidate number one”. If VTsIOM gave Putin 45-48 percent in December, then the Levada Center calculated the electoral rating at the level of 36 percent at 22 percent of the undoubted, for whom they will vote in the elections. Given the possible growth of the rating over the past month, the numbers are generally similar - VTsIOM uses a slightly different assessment methodology.
The rating of Putin on Levada Center, however, in the last six months was subjected to significant fluctuations - 23 percent in June 2011, 27 - in mid -September, at once 42 - after the September Congress of United Russia, 36 - in October and 31 percent in November.
However, the rating fluctuations do not affect the overall picture: if you believe the polls, there is almost no doubt that Vladimir Putin will win without problems in the March elections and will do this with a high probability already in the first round.
It is another matter that the favorite of the election race inevitably gains a little more than deserves.
Putin is a non -alternative candidate. They did not manage to grow a worthy alternative candidate in the Kremlin “in a test tube” (probably, they didn’t try very hard). It turned out two unsuccessful experiments - like a socialist Sergei Mironov and, as it were, liberal Mikhail Prokhorov, both with almost zero presidential prospects.
Alternative candidates and political forces in captivity are not propagated, and the “will” of the efforts of the same presidential administration in recent years has almost no remaining. The reserved Internet, of course, has become some segment of political liberty, but for the federal election campaign. In this sense, leisure conversations about the “President Navalny” remain a phenomenon, although not quite narrowly (thousands, if not tens of thousands of people), but a party phenomenon still read his blog.
However, it is not only too early to rest on his laurels to Vladimir Putin, but in no case. In the election sense, he does this: he appears to all categories of citizens, even disagreeing with him, pronounces some of the correct empty words, writes articles in newspapers. And it meets, meets, meets. Behind the workers - the "Popular Front", behind the "front" - the editors of the media and so on.
The most unpleasant thing for Putin is that the use of these meetings and from the non -alternativeness of him as a candidate.
He will win the elections whether there will be massive frauds or not. Citizens are supported by him, because there is no one else to provide support, and "Putin is power."
However, in the general system of weak institutions and the replacement of the state by its individual agents, using the mandate from the state in order to personal enrich the fall of confidence in power in general, it can be resurrected by Putin’s rating in a matter of weeks. In some distant perspective - until March 4, he is unlikely to fall.
And citizens meanwhile come out of the state of apathy. This process is long, but over the past years, it is noticeable-there is a movement against migrates, and the protection of various historical regions and buildings from demolition (or in the St. Petersburg version-a protest against the construction of Gazprom-City), and the unrest of football fans on Manezhnaya Square in Moscow. There is much more to recall, of course, until the December mass rallies in the capital.
This phenomenon is still predominantly noticeable in large cities, but not only. It is worth recalling the same rallies of “angry fishermen” last year that they swept throughout Russia. The authorities do not know how to speak with “self -organized citizens” - for it is almost impossible to marginalize such movements, to speak with their representatives, for lack of them, it is impossible, and it is pointless to buy regular speakers “from fishermen” or “from motorists”. Well, Vyacheslav Lysakov, the leader of the movement of Russia's motorists, entered the ONF - did this help greatly in the conditions of, say, of the capital's traffic jams, prohibitive duties on the import of foreign cars and flashing lights of officials?
The new reality, which is formed before our eyes, requires the authorities of some non-purely election response and new forms of dialogue with citizens. Whether this dialogue is possible and in what form is not a pre -election issue. So far, Putin has a rating under or 50 percent and nothing threatens his re -election. Next, you will have to either agree or build a completely full -fledged dictatorship.