Putin's firm grip will endure

President's rigid policies are part of Russia's identity

MOSCOW -- When Vladimir Putin was elected president in 2000, Russian television was a rough-and-tumble place, broadcasting fierce debates and biting satire. One by one, those programs were taken off the air.

Sunday's presidential election marks a symbolic end to Russia's tortured post-Soviet odyssey from poverty and despair to economic might. But along the way, the country has embraced a rigid political orthodoxy -- call it "Putinism" -- that the Kremlin has used to crush the independence of political parties, civil society and the media.

"Everything today is being seen through the eyes of the Putin presidency," said Savik Shuster, the former host of "Freedom of Speech," one of the last of the no-holds-barred talk shows when it was yanked in 2004.

Now, he said, Russia's TV fare suggests "that everything that is democratic is actually stale and bitter and useless."

The president's stature is such that the election is expected to be little more than a ratification of his choice of a successor: his longtime friend and first deputy prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev. Putin, meanwhile, plans to become prime minister when his presidential term ends in May -- and many suspect he will continue to run Russia from behind the scenes.

Voters seem reluctant to see the Putin era end.

Cleaning up the 'mess'

"Before Putin, Russia was a mess. I was offended by seeing how Russia was humiliated by the West," said Ella Luschenko, 45, who moved to Moscow with her two sons in the late 1990s after divorcing an alcoholic husband.

"Now, you don't have to go to bed thinking, 'What am I going to do tomorrow to feed myself?' "

What about democracy?

"Russia never knew democracy, and attempts to introduce it always ended in a bad way," she said.

Indeed, that view is shared by millions of Russians who equate democracy with the chaos, corruption and economic meltdown of the years under Putin's predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.

Yeltsin was, in a sense, a demolition expert who brought the remnants of the Soviet Union crashing down around the heads of the Russian people. Wars, financial shocks and beggary followed. The low point came in 1998, when the ruble collapsed and Russia was forced to accept a humiliating bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

After Putin was elected in March 2000, it was his job -- essentially -- to build a replacement for the socialist utopia.

His experience as a spy and his career as a bureaucrat in the 1990s in St. Petersburg and Moscow may not have made him the ideal national architect. But eight years ago he was the only one Russia had.

Today, Russians seem to have many reasons to be content.

Fueled by a boom in the price of oil, gross domestic product has grown by 70 percent from 2000 to 2007, real incomes have doubled, and the poverty rate has been cut almost in half. Russia today has more billionaires than any nation except the United States and Germany. Perhaps one-fifth of Russians belong to a fledgling middle class.

Medvedev has pledged to strengthen Russian democracy. But democratic reform may come slowly to Russia, if it comes at all.

While he is barred by the constitution from seeking a third term as president, Putin -- whose approval ratings in February hit 85 percent -- is likely to be regarded as Russia's national leader for months to come.

President Bush suggested Thursday that one clue about who's in charge will be which of the two -- Putin or Medvedev -- shows up at the next Group of Eight gathering of world leaders, in July. Asked at a news conference whether Medvedev would be Putin's puppet, Bush said he would not reach that conclusion.