Olaf Koens

Uw correspondent in Rusland zou geen woord vuilmaken aan de Russische verkiezingen. Sterker nog, om een depressie te voorkomen heeft hij tijdelijk zijn kamp opgeslagen in het Vrije Westen. Toch heb ik de hele dag het nieuws gelezen, van ‘stembiljetman‘ tot de eerste uitslagen uit Kamtsjatka. Voor wie het nog niet wist; Poetin wint alles.

Zelfs stembiljetman moest brommen

Ik zal u mijn bespiegelingen en doemscenario’s besparen. Er staat een zinvolle analyse in The New York Times, waarbij ik u deze quote niet mag onthouden.

Grigory A. Yavlinsky, leader of Yabloko, one of the mainstream liberal parties that have opposed Mr. Putin, said Mr. Putin had put himself in a bind because he wants to retain power but knows that if he tries to obtain a third term immediately, he will be seen as illegitimate by some in Russia and abroad.

“He has created really an authoritarian system, in which he is like a hill in the desert, and nobody is around,” Mr. Yavlinsky said. “Now time has come to make a transfer of power, and he really, really has no idea how to do that. And nobody else has any idea. And his character is such that he has no confidence in anybody. So he creates a procedure that is abnormal. That is why he is in real difficulty.”

“And that is why there is this instability now, and why the bureaucracy is very nervous,” Mr. Yavlinsky said.

Vladimir Vladimirovitsj als Halloween-masker [.pdf]