Main focus of Monday, February 27, 2012

Anti-Putin protests continue

Demonstrators formed a 16-kilometre-long chain in Moscow. (© AP/dapd)

Tens of thousands of opponents to Vladimir Putin's rule once again gathered in Moscow and other Russian cities on Sunday to demonstrate against Putin's candidacy for the office of president. Commentators write that although Putin stands to win next Sunday's vote, the protests herald the end of his rule.

Svenska Dagbladet - Sweden

The growing protests against President Putin are making it clear that the citizens are no longer willing to be pushed around, the conservative daily Svenska Dagbladet comments: "Many Russians have realised how the system works and they have had enough of it. The mass demonstrations send a clear message. Next Sunday Putin will very likely be able to call himself president after the first round of elections. But he is not a real victor. There will no doubt be reports of election rigging - even if perhaps not on the same scale as with the parliamentary elections. … Because the regimes control the key media and can oppress the opposition with legal means the election is no true indicator of the political situation. It is simply not fair. Russia is not a true democracy. But the genie has escaped from the bottle and Putin won't be able to get the cork back in. Russian politics has woken up." (27/02/2012)

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La Stampa - Italy

The protests against Vladimir Putin mark the beginning of the end of his rule, the liberal daily La Stampa notes: "Everything indicates that in one week Vladimir Putin will have won the presidential elections. Then at least theoretically he can remain in power until 2024. But thanks to the largest demonstrations against the Kremlin since the end of communism, the mood in the past three months has changed radically. More and more people are evoking something that had seemed unimaginable until now: a Russia without Putin. The true problem isn't Putin's willingness for reform, but the fact that any serious attempt to fight corruption and abuse of power would destroy the system that holds him in office. Even representatives of the Kremlin believe Putin would be sawing off the branch he's sitting on if he really undertook to fight these two phenomena which the demonstrators are so up in arms about." (27/02/2012)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Elections, » Russia
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Delo - Slovenia

Tens of thousands of people protested against the presidential candidate Vladimir Putin on the weekend with a human chain stretching 16 kilometres around the centre of Moscow. No matter how hard he tries to avoid it Putin's rule will eventually come to an end, writes the left-liberal daily Delo: "Putin prolongs his term in office by forcing state employees to participate in pro-Putin rallies and cast their ballots in his favour, while doing all he can to curtail civil rights. But Russia will not remain an 'ice desert' forever, as the advisor to three Tsars Konstantin Petrovich Pobyedonostsyev described the country in the 19th century. The current leadership will try to make Russia remain an ice desert for as long as possible. But sooner or later Russia, too, will have its 'Spring'." (27/02/2012)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Elections, » Russia
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