Putin to deliver state of nation address
Russian President Vladimir Putin will deliver an annual state of the nation address on Monday, the Kremlin announced, as the country increasingly looks ahead to 2008 presidential elections in which Putin is constitutionally banned from standing.
The speech before an audience of politicians, government officials and other dignitaries, will be Putin’s second state of the union address since his overwhelming re-election to a second term in March 2004 and his sixth as Russian leader.
In the past year, the confidence of the Russian leadership has been shaken by popular uprisings in the ex-Soviet republics of Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan and mass street protests over painful social reforms in Russia.
Political commentators expect Putin to stress the need for strong measures to shore up the Russian state, mirroring a recent warning by his chief of staff that infighting among politicians may cause Russia to collapse, leading to “horrible consequences” and making the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union seem like a “kindergarten party”.
Nikolai Petrov, an expert in Russian politics at the Carnegie Moscow Centre think-tank, said that the Kremlin seemed to draw the conclusion the best way to contain the situation was to further tighten the screws of control.
“The lessons of the revolutions in the post-Soviet sphere and the social protests in Russia have not been learned. The mistakes of the first year of Putin’s second term should have taught the Kremlin that you need to develop democratic institutions, principally the parliament,” he said.
“Instead they are raising the barriers to such an extent they are pushing all other political forces onto the streets,” the analyst said.
The Russian lower house of parliament earlier this month eased the passage of a law ending the election of independent politicians and requiring all candidates to be registered on party lists – a measure expected to reinforce the dominance of the majority pro-Kremlin United Russia party.
Putin has been accused by his critics of backsliding on democracy since coming to power in 2000, restraining independent media and the sprawling country’s regions as well as ensuring a compliant parliament and attacking politically ambitious tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Some liberal opponents of Putin say they expect him to nominate a loyal, but uncharismatic, successor to stand in the 2008 elections.
They warn that polls will likely be rigged to ensure victory, which could spark street protests similar to those that toppled long-time leaders in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan over the past 18 months.
