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Anti-Putin opposition tends to be leaderless, heterogeneous and apolitical
by Nina Achmatova
Streets protesters tend to come from the country’s developing middle class. For now, it has no recognised leader. For organisers, what matters is to educate civil society and de-legitimise Putin’s party.
Moscow (AsiaNews) – The movement behind the most important anti-government demonstrations in Russia in the past 15 years is so heterogeneous, eclectic and unstructured that it defies description. Still, after the mass demonstration in Moscow on 24 December, sociologists and media pundits are trying to do just that.
For the past month, activists have called for the cancellation of last month’s parliamentary elections, the adoption of a new electoral law and an end to ‘Putinism’. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the main target of demonstrators’ slogans, is using the lack of a clear leader to justify his government’s refusal to meet their demands. For some pundits, as long as the protest movement is without a leader, the Kremlin will not feel threatened enough to start a dialogue.
For now, the “extra-system” opposition, as it has come to be known, is not seeking any leader or planning a political agenda. “It is not important to become a political party,” environmentalist and protest organiser Evgenia Chirikova told AsiaNews. “What matters right now is to educate civil society so that people are aware of their rights and to undermine the power and credibility of the party of thieves and cheats,” which is how Putin’s United Russia party is called after it won the last elections amidst accusations of fraud and vote rigging.
For sociologists, the intellectuals, human rights activists, young students and workers, small entrepreneurs and professionals that are taking to the streets to protest peacefully and organising online and in social networks represent a new Russian middle class. It is what Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin who now heads Solidarnost, a group that organises demonstrations, calls the ‘creative Moscow’, namely educated people who travel and get their information online and not from official media.
Survey research backs this view. In a recent study by Levada, an independent research centre, 62 per cent of the movement’s members are university graduates, 69 per cent backs liberal or pro-democracy parties and more than two thirds goes online. Indeed, the Internet is the opposition’s most important tool.
Still, even though three quarters of respondents say their protest is against the authorities, they don’t have a clear idea of who should replace Putin who is preparing to move back to the Kremlin after the upcoming presidential elections on 4 March.
For 41 per cent of those surveyed, journalist Leonid Parfenov is one possible leader. The list of leaders also includes writer Boris Akunin and blogger Alexey Navalny (35 per cent and the 36 per cent of support). The latter however gets only 22 per cent for president, whilst 21 per cent would pick Yabloko party leader Grigory Yavlinsky.
In a survey by public polling company Vtsiom, this trend is confirmed. Meanwhile, as civil society groups plans to continue their protests until the March presidential elections, which they already deem illegitimate, Vladimir Putin’s popularity continues to decline. Even if he is still the frontrunner, his support has dropped from 60 per cent in 2008 to 44 per cent today, this according to the Public Opinion Fund.
Siberian and rural voters, people with below average wages, the elderly and women are more likely to vote for him. By contrast, Putin is less popular among city folks, people with higher incomes, higher education and residents of Moscow and the Central Federal District as well as voters between the ages of 45 and 54.