Six years of hopelessness

What can we expect from the old new government

Since man, as has been known since the time of Aristotle, is a political animal, one even wants to look for intrigue in Russian politics. Now, as these lines are being written, a few hours remain before the parliamentary vote on Dmitry Medvedev's approval for the post of prime minister. The candidate conducts consultations with the Duma factions. Deputies are determined with a position. The fate of the new government hangs in the balance.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, has already, for example, made an unequivocal statement (how can one mention Zhirinovsky and not write the word “unambiguously” next to it? - it’s absolutely impossible to resist): “We have a presidential republic: if three-quarters of the people in the country voted for Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, who took office today as President of Russia, his candidate, of course, should receive our full support. But Sergei Mironov, the leader of A Just Russia, is still hesitating. First, he wrote on Twitter, demonstrating a rare adherence to principles: "The faction of the SR decided to vote against Medvedev's candidacy for the post of prime minister," then rumors appeared that the Socialist-Revolutionaries might abstain. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is definitely against it, and the communists will not even try to shove their candidates for ministerial positions.

Here it is, the struggle, here is the longed-for intrigue! It is only necessary to feel the taste of intrigue, to forget that United Russia has a constitutional majority in parliament, Medvedev will become prime minister, even if all the pseudo-opposition factions vote against it. Nobody expected another prime minister. True, the ultra-Putinists on social networks were clearly upset: at first, the beloved president hurt them, scolding the “dense guards” in his inaugural speech, and then simply offended them in the best of feelings, retaining the prime minister’s post for a worthless liberal.

Yes, in 2018, there are still hermits in the Internet taiga, who Medvedev is considered a Western liberal. In general, it is admitted that he has his own views and his own policy. You can probably laugh at this.

By the way, even United Russia members laughed at Medvedev (and after all, the permanent prime minister is listed as the chairman of the ruling party). When, at a meeting with the deputies from United Russia, Medvedev proposed Vitaly Mutko for the post of Deputy Prime Minister for Construction, the idea was greeted with unanimous laughter. Although, by the way, Mutko has experience: it was he who oversaw the construction of the Zenit Arena in St. Petersburg, he is looking after the most expensive and most ridiculous long-term construction in the country. The former-future prime minister himself justified the controversial personnel decision by the unwillingness to "bend under external circumstances." Well, that is, literally - to the evil of the world, we will promote a person smeared in a doping scandal. An interesting way to choose managers, perhaps even a unique one.

It remains to figure out how the changes in the expanded corps of deputy prime ministers will affect the life of Russians. Guessing whether the new overseer from the presidential administration in the government will be strict (Konstantin Chuichenko, a candidate for the position of head of the government apparatus, replacing the disgraced Sergei Prikhodko, the same one who, in the company of the now famous Nastya Rybka, rested on the yacht of the oligarch Oleg Deripaska). Count how many defendants in the investigations of Alexei Navalny have lost their posts, and admire the influence of the Anti-Corruption Foundation. Look for traces of the fact that there is still public opinion in the country and that the authorities listen to it: they are removing the anecdotal Dmitry Rogozin, the master of crackling patriotic rhetoric, who failed everything that can be failed and everything that cannot be, drowned several satellites and not one in than an innocent dog who shot himself in the foot at a shooting range and got stuck in a tank at a training ground.

All this is even curious in its own way, only curiosity turns out to be somehow forced. There is no escape from the feeling that the country, under the bravura reports of the authorities about successes and breakthroughs (let us recall, for example, the recent speech of the same Medvedev in the Duma), is doomed to go in circles. The eternal president appoints a permanent prime minister, who is supported by the faceless, but also eternal United Russia members and the immortal Zhirinovsky who joined them. The President, apparently forgetting about the May 2012 decrees, which have not yet been fully implemented, issues a new unenforceable May decree. back in April 2012 The coincidences are sometimes literal: for example, Putin promised : "According to our estimates, in the next two or three years Russia will become one of the five largest economies in the world." Well, it didn't work out. Think about it. Let's try again. “We have eternity ahead of us,” as Pyotr Tolstoy, a State Duma deputy from United Russia, used to say more than once.

And it seems that all these middle-aged people who have lost their sense of reality seriously believe that they have eternity ahead of them. They have eternity, we have guaranteed six years of hopelessness under their rule

And it seems that all these middle-aged people who have lost their sense of reality seriously believe that they have eternity ahead of them. They have an eternity, we have guaranteed six years of hopelessness under their rule. And for those who are dissatisfied with this prospect, police batons will explain everything. Although no, not only clubs, now also whips - after all, we are citizens of an innovative power aimed at technological breakthroughs. Our Ministry of Culture, together with the Moscow Mayor's Office, feed the bandits trained to beat the unarmed. And this, by the way, is much more curious than all the reshuffles in the new-old government. There is more intrigue in the prospect of a hybrid civil war than in a predictable parliamentary vote.

* The opinion of the author may not coincide with the opinion of the editors