Wikistrat post @ CNN-GPS: What Putin 2.0 will mean
Friday, March 2, 2012 at 4:38PM Editor’s Note: The following piece, exclusive to GPS, comes from Wikistrat, the world's first massively multiplayer online consultancy. It leverages a global network of subject-matter experts via a crowd-sourcing methodology to provide unique insights.
In last year’s parliamentary (Duma) elections, current Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party had to stuff ballot boxes just to avoid falling too far below the 50 percent mark. Now, as Putin presents himself to voters this Sunday as the once-and-future president, there’s clearly a bottom-up backlash brewing among the urban young and middle-class. Will it prevent a Putin win? Hardly. The only uncertainty here is how far Putin’s United Russia party will have to go to ensure a respectable victory margin. Whether anyone - at home or abroad - will actually respect the process is another thing.
So, stipulating that Putin 2.0 is a given, here’s Wikistrat's weekly crowd-sourced examination of what all this may mean for Russia and the world at large.
Read the entire post at CNN's GPS blog.
Russia, US foreign policy | in CNN/GPS blog, Tom video, Wikistrat | Email Article | Permalink | Print Article 
Reader Comments (3)
Well, you have all those angry urban middle class people with their white ballons and their Otpor-slogans---BUT: do they have a candidate? Answer: NO!!! Should their candidate be Sjuganow (CP Russia), Schirinowski (Russian Hitler), Prochorow ( an Oligarch who is believed to be himself a Putin project), Kasparow (good chess player, but no real candidate), Minonow (no charisma, an outsider)? There is NO ANTI-PUTIN in sight.A movement, but no serious candidate. And what is so bad about Putin? That he nationalized strategic industries, raw materials and resources, that he is not buying out Russia to the Wall Street and the City of London like Chodorkosky, that he wants to see a strong Russian military? Aireseabattle focuses on China and Iran, because they are perceived by NATO for being too weak. No wonder, that Putin wants to show NATO that he won't be an easy play for NATO or Airseabattles or whatever.In your articles--like most Western mainstream media-- you really don´t make any real argument why we should perceive Putin as the bad guy.
"Like most siloviki, Putin is a genius at getting power. He just doesn’t have any idea what to do with it."
This begs an interesting question: What SHOULD he be doing with it?
What is your critic on Putin? That he is not a pure democrat (then what about China?...) or that he is an obstacle for globalization? Therefore you have to make the argument that Putin wants Russia as a semifeudalistic oil state which doesn´t invest in new industries and which doesn´t want foreign capital to flow in to restructure the Russian economy. As far as I´m informed Putin has build a socalled "future fonds" which is investing oil and gas revenues into new techologies and industries.And German industry is alos investing in Russia.Why do you not mention this? And what about the other canidates? What is their economic programme--Sjuganow (CP Russia)--would you like that? Or Schirinowski (Russian Hitler)--does he have any plan except conquering Poland? Kasparow--a chess player, but does he know anything about economy. Prochorow--an oligarch--do you want a plutocracy in Russia--the democracy of the rich man--would your urban middle class people like this? What would Prochorow do? Invest in his own enterprises and getting richer , be the puppet of Putin or sell out Russia like Chodorkowsky did it?If you want to portray Putin as an economic desatser, please analyze his economy policy and critizise his "future fonds".