Putin is heading for victory in the presidential elections on Sunday. However, this time the victory will be clouded by social protests and record low popularity.

Since coming to power in 1999, Putin has turned from a president of stability to a prime minister in crisis.

The parliamentary elections on December 4 were so blatantly rigged in favor of Putin's party that discontent emerged from within the slumbering Russian population. Since the early nineties, there were rarely demonstrations of more than a few thousand people.

The recent election fraud gave birth to a new protest culture. Protesting has become fashionable among the urban middle-class. In the last three months, the number of the anti-Putin protesters calling for fair elections has repeatedly hit the 100,000 mark, with people not being put off by freezing sub-zero temperatures. A 30,000 person-strong "protest chain" lining up along the 21-km ring road encircling Moscow's city center was the movement's latest action.

Putin responded to the new trend of street actions by rallying his own supporters. Thousands of public sector workers were summoned to a rally in Luzhniki stadium last week. Many of them were offered a couple of days off work as compensation for listening to the performance of the popular rock and folk group Lubeh and to Putin's speech, in which he accused America of financing the protests in order to destabilize Russia.

It is the weakness of the opposition that keeps Putin in power. Communist candidate Gennady Zyuganov is expected to garner a maximum of 20 percent of the vote in the coming elections. Sergey Mironov, candidate for the Just Russia social democratic party, and Vladimir Zhirinovsky of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia do not stand any realistic chance against Putin.

People resent these parties for having toed the Kremlin line for too long. Most of them, especially the Liberal Democrats, have been around for ages and never managed to extend their influence beyond a small section of society.

A new face in Russian politics, independent candidate and billionaire tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov suggested boosting labor efficiency in Russia by upping the work week from 40 to 60 hours. This might appeal to some among the aspiring urban middle classes; however, even in neoliberal Russia, most people would find it rather outrageous.

The prevalence of pro-business liberals in the protest movement explains its weak support in the provinces. With the onset of the economic crisis, workers face rising unemployment, corruption, poor public health care provision and high fees for education. This negative development is set against the background of a continuously growing gap between rich and poor following the break-up of the Soviet Union. Since then, the top 20 percent of the population have been among the winners, but almost two-thirds of the population are no better off than they were in the early nineties. The bottom 40 percent of Russian society are earning less in real terms than they did in 1991. Social inequality increased further during the long oil boom of the 2000s and today is on a similar level to many African countries.

The effects are glaringly visible in demographic trends: Russia's population shrank from 148 million in the early nineties to 143 million, with early deaths being more and more prevalent among poorer sections of society. Male life expectancy, which in the early 1960s was higher than in the United States, has plummeted to 59 years. The death rate is more than a third higher than the world average. Despite government efforts to boost the birth rate, it has remained low. Immigration flows into Russia have failed to compensate for this.

This is not exactly laudable for a country with immensely rich resources and a population with a level of literacy that still exceeds most Western European countries. As long as oil prices were high, Putin had the means to improve the social situation in the country. Yet he did not.

His sudden election year promises to look after the socially deprived parts of the country sound feeble.

The protest movement has not been overly concerned about social issues either. In fact, the liberal voices within the protest movement proudly boast that they consist of people who have succeeded in life and emphasized that it did not wish to address social issues. Nevertheless, very quickly ordinary Russians and even some of the urban poor also took to the streets to express their opinions.

According to surveys carried out by the research organization Levada Center, 40 percent of the protesters who marched on December 24 can afford to buy a TV or a fridge, but not a car. 21 percent cannot even afford a TV or a fridge. 4 percent have enough means to buy food, but not clothes. 3 percent face troubles to purchase food.

The concerns of the wider population clearly go beyond mere anti-Putin slogans and calls for fair elections. If the protesters start to address issues such as pensions, affordable housing and education and acceptable health care provisions, this could create an impetus which would make things much tougher for Putin in the months and years to come.

The author is an expert on the U.S.S.R. and contemporary Russia.She currently teaches Russian and Soviet History at both Westminster and Brunel University, U.K. She can be reached at eschimpfoessl@yahoo.de

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