Presidential Election in the Russian Federation and the Volga-Ural Diaspora

[Säğit Xäyri]

Presidential Election in the Russian Federation and the Volga-Ural Diaspora

Today, Sunday March 4, 2012, voters in the Russian Federation will be going to the polls to elect a new president. As anyone who has followed the international press is aware, the name of the “candidate” who will win is already known: the former president and sitting prime minister Vladimir Putin. Recent legislative changes allow him a six-year presidential term, with the possibility of being reelected for another six-year term.

The West had favored the actual president, Dmitry Medvedev, who is younger and who appears more cultured and analytically minded, more liberal and less “rigid”; and had hoped he would put forward his candidacy. However, when he bowed out last summer in favor of Putin, without having put into application any of the democratization measures he had been advocating, he turned out to have been a mere presidential dummy. He seems to have already been relegated to the relevant footnote in history.

Bar a totally unexpected event, Putin, who will be sixty in October 2012, will be elected the next president of the Russian Federation. However, what may follow next is uncertain. It looks as if demonstrations such as those of 2011 protesting the results of the parliamentary elections, alleged to have been rigged, will take place after the presidential election also. Some likened the protests to those of the “Arab spring” and Putin himself accused the USA of being behind them. One view, held by some observers, upholds that the economy of the Russian Federation is indexed solely to the high price of oil and gas, in other words, that it is dependent solely on natural resources; and that, therefore, its future collapse, or helping bring about its collapse as it was done during Gorbachev, is not that improbable. Such an eventuality would of course trigger both short- and long-term changes. Observers predict that the most long-term, the most radical change would be the dissolution of the Russian Federation, just like that of the Soviet Union.

The election concerns all our compatriots in the Volga-Ural: first of all, administratively speaking Putin will be their president also. One must not forget that at present the presidents of the autonomous republics are appointed; their position is basically that of a regional governor. Thus, the highest administrative authority in the lives of our compatriots will be Putin. His photograph will be displayed alongside those of the presidents of the autonomous republics in government buildings, and decrees of prime importance will bear his signature. Some of these decrees will affect directly the lives of our compatriots. Thus, Putin's reelection should concern all of us in the diaspora. Let us not forget that resolutions taken in the Russian Federation affect us as well: for example, citizens of the Republic of Turkey are not at all unhappy to be able to land on Volga-Ural soil without any visa.

Yet, what may happen after the election is a totally different matter. No observer predicts that peace and quiet will reign in the Russian Federation during the next twelve years. Will the administration lend an ear to what has been articulated during the protests and start on reforms, or will it decide to crush all demonstrations, at the cost of shedding blood if necessary? Only time will show. However, envisaging a number of structural changes in the Russian Federation, whether as a result of blood shedding or not, in the not too distant a future, may not be pure fantasy. Small signs, that appear inconsequential on their own, when added lead one to believe that such a probability is not that farfetched; and compel one to reflect on the probable nature and dimensions of such a development. This would of course affect our compatriots directly and profoundly. That is why also Putin's reelection concerns us in the diaspora.

As members of the diaspora—both of the inner diaspora living outside of the Volga-Ural yet within the Russian Federation, and of the external diaspora living abroad—we need to follow closely this election, and especially its aftermath, apt to affect our compatriots.

Dr. Gönül Pultar
President, World League of Tatars

--
Tatar Press
Sagit Hayri