Posted on December 21, 2011 - by Venik

Vladimir Putin: have a care, manling

Kipling might have been flattered to learn that one of his most avid readers was the Russian prime minister

“Kaa was everything that the monkeys feared in the jungle, for none of them knew the limits of his power, none of them could look him in the face, and none had ever come alive out of his hug.” Kipling might have been flattered to learn that one of his most avid readers was Vladimir Putin. But his jaw would not have dropped as swiftly as those of that band of prematurely ageing brothers whose task is to improve the prime minister’s image. Of all the Jungle Book characters Putin could have picked to project himself as the voice of reason during a live, nationally televised 4½-hour phone-in – Baloo, Bagheera, even the man-cub Mowgli – the 30ft python Kaa was not he. And the monkeys? It was obvious who they were – the tens of thousands of Russians who were stupid or venal enough (some had been paid by outside governments, Putin claimed) to protest against a clumsily rigged election.

Nearly three weeks on, Russia has settled into a rhythm of sorts. The museum parties of the Duma, the officially sanctioned supporters and opponents of the Kremlin, settled into their designated seats yesterday in the chamber, a cross between a club, an estate agent’s and a sanatorium. Meanwhile, the unsanctioned opposition emerged from their jail cells, scratching their heads. What next? Had they emerged, as they claimed, into a different country? Their next big test is a rally on Christmas Eve, with more than 31,000 signed up on Facebook to take part. Their leading lights are a 35-year-old lawyer and blogger, a rock star and a political activist. Of the three, only the lawyer Alexei Navalny, is a natural. It was his description of United Russia as the party of swindlers and thieves that struck a chord with millions of Russians. It was his tactic of calling on people to register their protest by voting for anyone but the party of power that confounded the Kremlin. The task before people like him is gargantuan – to keep the protest massive, peaceful and going somewhere.

Putin’s response to the shock of his falling popularity is now clear. It consists of four lines of defence. The first is to allow mass protests to go ahead, because after all, Putin claims, Russia is a democracy where people are free to express themselves. The second is to drop small hints or concessions which would change the lives of the apparatchiks below him, but leave his authority untouched. He hinted that he might allow small opposition parties to be registered, and at reintroducing direct elections for governors. The third line is to allow a rightwing oligarch like Mikhail Prokhorov to run against him in the presidential race, and to hint at bringing a technocrat like Alexei Kudrin back into power. The final line of defence is to split the opposition by more traditional means: this week a pro-Putin tabloid released tapes of phone calls between the opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and other activists. In one tape Nemtsov slagged off his comrades. Nemtsov has owned up to some of the words he used, and apologised for them. But the story turned from the content of the calls to the fact that they had been hacked. What happened to Nemtsov is no different to other activists who have had their blogs and emails hacked and websites blocked.

All obvious stuff for an autocrat to do. But he has a problem. He can not buy back his popularity because he will not have the money to do this. The budget needs crude oil to average $115 a barrel to break even, and both the oil price and the metal market will be lower in a global slump. Putin needs more than just money. He needs rebranding. When you have put so much effort into presenting yours as the sole hand on the tiller, it is difficult to collectivise the leadership. But he needs others to carry through the task of modernising the nation. Putin needs to come up with a new big idea for a third term as president, and do so fairly quickly. Or one day he might find that the monkeys won’t scatter with cries of “Kaa! It is Kaa! Run! Run!”

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