the result of the vote on the constitutional changes in Russia says nothing about how big or small the support for the rule of Vladimir Putin by the population really is. What is the impressive-looking Numbers of participation and consent, in fact, show something else: The device still works.
In authoritarian States of the kind in Russia, where a Rest exists in free Public elections and voting a kind of stress test for the System. It needs to demonstrate its ability to organize a loyalty expressions of the citizens, and to confirm its legitimacy, or to simulate at least so convincing that no Alternative appears.
This is the Kremlin with this vote. But his actions revealed uncertainty: the most important of The amendments to the Constitution, those, which Putin allows for two further terms of office, weigh-in was in the campaign in shame, and the effort that has been operated in order to drive the participation in, the height, everything has exceeded what was seen in the previous elections under Putin.
This is still not a crisis of the rule of Putin, but it is another indication that the economic crisis and the Weariness of the same old faces flush with the base of his regime – and that one sees in the Kremlin. The answer is predictable: tougher repression against critics and opponents.
