Friday, December 16, 2011

Absolute (Putinesque) Politics and I

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Europe

On TV, Putin Is Dismissive of Critics Far and Near

By
Published: December 15, 2011
MOSCOW — Vladimir V. Putin was back in the saddle during his annual televised question-and-answer session on Thursday night — glowing with health and sure of himself, reeling off catalogs of numbers and acid one-liners, just like old times.
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Alexey Nikolsky/European Pressphoto Agency
Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said Thursday that paid agents had been working to undermine him.

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Screens in an electronics store in Moscow showed Vladimir Putin on Thursday. 

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Mr. Putin, Russia’s prime minister, was trying to put things in order after weeks of mounting evidence that political discontent is rising in Russia’s large cities. He shrugged off an incident when he was booed by sports fans, saying that paid agents were working to undermine him. He dismissed a respected magazine’s publication of an image with an obscenity directed at him, saying it was the work of traitors he had exiled.
And asked about some 50,000 middle-class Muscovites who massed near the Kremlin last Saturday demanding political change, he said, “I know that the young people were paid for coming.” He also had a vulgar quip for the white ribbons they wore, too, saying they looked like “condoms.”
For the Russian public, this marathon session offered the first chance to hear directly from Mr. Putin since last week’s series of protests. For four and a half hours, Mr. Putin projected a cocky certainty, saying that he did not notice the first protests because he was busy taking ice hockey lessons. But he found himself drawn again and again to the question of his own legitimacy.
“Today one can rely only on the people of Russia,” Mr. Putin said. “I can tell you definitely, if I don’t feel that support — not according to certain Web sites or even on the squares, in a democratic society it is determined by the results of a vote — if I see that there is no such support, I will not stay in my office a single day.”
For several weeks, people have been watching to see how Mr. Putin would respond. The sour mood began to percolate on Sept. 24, when he revealed his plans to seek the presidency again, frustrating those who had been hoping for liberal reforms. It boiled over last week, after parliamentary elections that were widely seen as fraudulent. Mr. Putin is starting what will be a difficult presidential campaign, not because he faces formidable opponents, but because voters are becoming tired of him.
Thursday offered some evidence of how he will approach the protests. After the broadcast, even some of Mr. Putin’s longtime supporters worried that he was underestimating the level of discontent that is taking shape and emboldening the opposition.
“He believes that it is a very small minority” protesting the elections, said Nikolai Zlobin, a Washington-based political analyst who attended the question-and-answer session. “That’s a problem, because I think there are a lot of confused people in the society, and it is important for him to try to find a common language with them. My feeling is he feels there is a certain segment of society that just think so differently that it’s not worth spending time trying to convince them to support him.”
Public support has been declining gradually for all parts of the government. The ruling party, United Russia, lost 77 seats in the Dec. 4 elections despite lackluster competition, and domestic and international observers say that even that result was inflated by fraud.
Mr. Putin remains popular by international standards, but his ratings are also in decline. The state-owned All-Russia Public Opinion Center noted a sudden drop in respondents who said they trusted Mr. Putin, from 34 percent in late November to 25 percent on Dec. 10, the day of the biggest protests.
Mr. Putin’s dismissive comments took many in Moscow by surprise. The former finance minister Aleksei L. Kudrin, a close ally of Mr. Putin’s for 20 years, said he thought the prime minister was underestimating the seriousness of the protesters’ complaints.
“I think that his attitude toward the protests, I am probably not in agreement with it, because hundreds of thousands of people would not have gone out, there is no need to provoke them,” Mr. Kudrin told the RIA Novosti news agency.
Mr. Putin offered his critics a modest degree of accommodation. He said he was gratified to see the increasing engagement of young people in politics, saying, “If this is the result of the Putin regime, then great.”
Though he made it clear he would not consider nullifying the results of the elections, as protesters have demanded, he said he would consider installing Web cameras in 90,000 polling places to guard against falsification in the March presidential elections. He also proposed restoring direct elections of governors — which were scrapped under his first presidency — though his proposal is a half-measure, allowing candidates to go to a popular vote only after they have been approved by “presidential filter,” as he put it.
Mr. Putin lashed out repeatedly at the United States, most dramatically in response to a question about Senator John McCain of Arizona, who recently said via Twitter that Mr. Putin was seeing the beginnings of an Arab Spring-style uprising. Mr. Putin said that Mr. McCain, as a Vietnam veteran, “has enough civilian blood on his hands, and he can’t live without these repulsive, disgusting scenes like the killing of Qaddafi,” whose death he said had been caused by an American drone.
He said Mr. McCain’s wartime experiences had left him psychologically unhinged.
“He went to prison, and not just in prison — they put him in a pit,” Mr. Putin said. “He sat in a pit for several years. Anyone would go crazy.”
Mr. Putin offered a long explanation for an episode on Nov. 20 that has now become famous, in which fans appeared to boo Mr. Putin when he stepped into the ring after a mixed martial arts event. He said he did not hear any booing himself, but went on to offer three possible explanations.
“One of them is that my physiognomy, which is constantly shown on television screens, aroused a certain displeasure,” he said. He went on to say that the fans may also have been booing Jeff Monson, the American wrestler who had just been defeated; he then said that fans may have been booing because they believed that the fight was rigged.
“The fact that some of our adversaries, mine in particular, seized on this and started to unravel it,” Mr. Putin said, “well, that is their job, they are paid for it.”
Furious antigovernment activists took to the blogosphere on Thursday night, passing around Photoshopped images of Mr. Putin with a condom pinned to his lapel. Anton Orekh, writing on the Web site for the Ekho Moskvy radio station, recommended that the prime minister “sit and calmly think about why this is happening.”
“If Vladimir Vladimirovich intends to govern us in the same spirit as before, then the number of wonderful, active, young people in the country will grow even faster,” he wrote. “The citizens with condoms on their clothes will grow to such numbers that they will no longer fit in one square and it will become necessary to rent all the squares and boulevards surrounding it.”
Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on December 16, 2011, on page A5 of the New York edition with the headline: On TV, Putin Is Dismissive Of Critics Far and Near.

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  • navanavonmilita
  • USA
  •  
  •  Recycled comment, originally posted at Foreign Affairs. Sorry.

    Comments

  • Absolute (Putinesque) Politics new

  • Submitted by Sid H. (May. 4, 2011) on December 16, 2011 - 1:28am.

  • My dear Kathryn Stoner-Weiss,
    I am Sid Harth.

  • Does that mean you dislike politics, Oops, Russian Vodka Absolut, absolutely? Oops, Smirnoff? Oops, Putinesque Russian politics? Oops, democracy in general? Oops, Autocracy in particular? Oops, The world in general? Oops, Politics in particular?
    Been there and done that kind of thingy.

  • Imperialist America, Oops, Jingoist America,. Satan of the West. Fumbling America. Tumbling America towards anarchy, Oops, lethargy. Visionary America (sic). Which America do you believe in?
    Please, pretty please don't spoil my Absolut guess.

  • Imperialist America. Hot to trott America. America that has reached her Nadir. America in search for the legendary (big foot) Yeti trying to set a permanent footprint in, of all the places, Pacific Ocean, America.

  • Oops, plum forgot, Innovative America.

  • Sister woman. Give it a rest. Absolut(ly). People who live in glass houses ought not be setting example to others trying to set up their glass houses on very earthquake prone region, politically speaking.

  • CIA-Oh! Oops, Dasvidaniya.

  • May Allah be praised, (PBUH).

  • ...and I am Sid Harth@arabuhuru.org
  •  
  • Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive. Comments FAQ »
    • keefie
    • .co
    Mao's hundred flowers campaign redux? It enabled him to identify his opponents. Then he killed them. Putin's response to the protesters so far has been untypically low key. He's a thug too. I recommend they be careful.
    • nsk1337
    • Canada
    A visualization of the election results, showing irregularities:

    http://uwdatasci.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/graphing-russias-election-fraud/
  3. Once again Vladimir Putin proves that he is a master of crude, offensive language.
    It's way too late to hope that he will stop bringing discredit and other great punishments to his own people. But it's not late to hope that the Russian people--thoughtful, courageous, and unlike their ruler, sensitive to language and lots else--will toss him into history's dustbin, where he fully deserves to breathe his
    own foul pollution.
    • John Bassler
    • Saugerties, NY
    No, Mr. Putin, it's your party that has hurt Russia by corrupting the electoral process.
    • Aus
    • Central CT
    It's frankly a little amazing how Putin sounds so like the leaders of Syria, Libya (Mr. Q), Yemen, etc., etc. Is there a handbook out there on how to be a totalitarian or despot, or whatever they're calling themselves these days? Oh, excuse me, I guess they have all adopted the use of the title "President" or "Prime Minister," as if they were fairly elected for those offices and - really - very popular. Heads up, you guys: saying it doesn't make it so.

    As for this handbook, with it's of "Things to say in response to: demonstrations, bad poll ratings, human rights violation accusations..." Does Putin really think that people are that clueless? His comments may be "on-message," but they are definitely "off-key." Doublespeak, doublethink...
    • TonyL
    • Atlanta
    Putin is doing the same thing as GOP is doing to the Occupy wall street protesters. Make them seem insignificant and take actions by arrests as all the local governments are doing to the frustrations of our people who are hurting. Our democracy is screwed up by the top 2% the rich getting richer by using influence on the GOP congress while the middle class is pushed back in the poverty and joblessness by the wall street dirty games. The right wing war hawks want to keep starting new wars by borrowing money from our children's future to keep the arms dealers in the business. We are now the most selfish citizenry since our nation was founded. We are the same as Russians and Chinese except we are now controlled by the few rich and powerful and they are controlled by few in politburo.
    • Dean Smith
    • Chicago Il
    Putin and Obama are one in the same.
    • Jacque Bauer
    • Los Angeles
    Putin is a jerk and a danger, to be sure. But I don't know what McNutts was trying to achive with his immature tweet. Certainly not very presidential. We need a very smart person in the White House who is not prone to shooting from the lip. Although I don't agree with him on every issue, that would appear to be only Romney.
    • Rob DL
    • Connecticut
    • Trusted
    Let them eat cake!

    So says Czar Putin. Well, I think that he underestimates just how great a country Russia really is, and perhaps more specifically, how resilient and determined it's people can be.

    I look forward to 2012, because I think it will be the year when Putin begins to realize that his days as self-appointed savior of the people are numbered.. A big problem, though, will be how he reacts when ultimately cornered. He has already illustrated his willingness to spark an international dispute simply to divert attention from protesters and a fraudulent election. What will he do when he truly feels his grip on power is slipping away?

    How unfortunate that a nation that went through such a positive and promising transformation in the nineties must now, through it all, get stuck with a man like Putin. Very unfortunate.
    • Daniel M Perrine
    • Baltimore, MD
    The dissenters should be quite used to being treated like pawns. Putin has trained the populace well in this behavior. At least they might be pawns contributing to a checkmate of corruption and oligarchy, and a victory of civic freedom.
    • Urban Ugly
    • Ct.
    “I see young, active people, clearly formulating their positions, and this makes me happy,”

    Russian Target Aquisition?
    • Paul
    • New York
    This is how rulers unconsciously admit weakness - paranoia with a schmear of arrogance. He is paranoid that he is losing control of his people to stronger rulers and he also insults his people by calling them tools. Unfortunately, respect for your people cannot be cultivated instantly, so the only way to cure this paranoia is to stop trying to rule.
    • michael
    • birmingham, alabama
    It sounds like Putin is simply taking a play from the American political manual--smear the opposition with charges of weakening the country or being unpatriotic enough to challenge the status quo. Frankly, the difference between Russian politics and American politics seems to be narrowing.
    • Jay
    • Philadelphia
    Mr. Putin seems to be unaware that his political actions also "hurt Russia", he can do this through political corruption, without any need to involve Russian voters.
    • telestrike
    • PA
    Get over it Vlad, you just can't handle anyone protesting your own version of tyranny. Go Russia go, get yourself BACK into a democracy!
    • lLya
    • Novosibirsk
    All you guys live in US and don't know russian reality and culture thats the main problem. Putin is better than alcoholic Yeltsin, and obviously better than coward and renegade Gorby. Without Putin in Russia will be civil war and collapse.
      • J.Philip
      • Mt. Olive, Louisi-Yana
      You sound as though that is not a good thing ?
    • Brian
    • Boston
    Seems like we've recently been placed in one too many "the devil you know," v. "the devil you don't" situations. Where are the friggin' angels?
    • Jack
    • Illinois
    Anyone here a Bugs Bunny fan, old Warner Brother cartoons? Remember Foghorn Leghorn and one of his old foes, Chicken Hawk? That's Putin - Chicken Hawk. Walks like him, talks like him, looks like him. And just like the small, insecure Chicken Hawk, so is Putin.
    • koi
    • Mormor, UT
    The old mafioso has an image problem. He's become uncool and that's deadly.
  20. This sounds no different from Qaddafi's statements that rebels were spies or on drugs, or the Assad regime's similar denial of genuine popular uprising. When leaders fabricate conspiracy theories about opponents, they show their true weakness through either gross cynicism or ignorance.
    • Ilya
    • New York
    Putin is a liar.
    • worriedmom
    • Arizona
    Sergey, Putin is pretty bad too!!!
      • Sergey
      • Houston
      I used quotation marks :)
    • Mike Connolly
    • Ivybridge, UK
    Putin has never used people this way, has he has he has he has he has?
  24. El Presidente for life has spoken, the Russian people have suffered so much under dictators, and would be dictators, wouldn't if be sublime if they finally awoke and realized that real change comes from courage within. Bravo to those who have had enough of dictators who speak with forked tongues.
    • Patricia
    • Pasadena, CA
    He's a dinosaur from the Cold War. It's time for him and everyone like him -- including Dick Cheney -- to go extinct.
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