Gamal Nkrumah appraises the prospects of the third term of a Putin presidency and looks at the legacy of the presumed Beelzebub who bedevils his foes Vladimir Putin could yet score a hat trick of his own goals. Putin is living in a world of superlatives, and his people are aware of his strength of character and the superior institutions, particularly the market that he personally helped buttress. Putin swept Russia's presidential poll with tears rolling down his cheeks at a victory rally attended by tens of thousands of his supporters. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that the now totally eclipsed Nobel peace laureate Mikhail Gorbachev presided over its ruin is over. How sound are these arguments? Rather than cajoling his opponents, Putin has chosen to plunge into new period of Russian triumphalism, blaming reactionaries for blocking progress and urging them to show some spine. In the contemporary resurgent Russia of Putin's making, the president-elect is expected to keep a kamikaze crew of technocrats among his entourage, and the world ought not to expect a policy blitzkrieg. Putin has no qualms about ditching Marxist-Leninism. Gorbachev attempted to resuscitate the Soviet economy, an optimist who mistakenly believed that the former Soviet Union will survive through the suppression of the worst aspect of Soviet state capitalism, Stalinist ideas and linkages with other like-minded nations. Many in the West believe that an international scrutiny of Putin's Russia must be undertaken. It is the sort of message that can elicit a smirk in the Kremlin. Russia has powerful allies in the international community. Putin also advocates a kind of pollyannaism that calls for the support of anti-imperialist nations that could presumable withstand the violence meted out against them by Western powers. Syria and North Korea are among those much-maligned nations that Putin champions in cahoots with the People's Republic of China. Convention demands that fiction be reviewed without reference to its creator's life. But Putin has created a real world power, and not a fictitious one. The charge that his policies hobble the Russian economy and infuriates the Russian electorate has been proven to be wrong. Nobody speaks up for the existing system put in place by Putin and it is deemed impossible to undo. Squaring the circle of Russia's contemporary history is no easy task. Putin's political opponents are bitter. He dismisses them as sour losers. But do Putin's people buy this line of argument? Thousands of anti-Putin activists converged on Pushkin Square to vent their frustration. "I am unable to recognise the election as honest, nor do I recognise its fairness, much less recognise the election as having been conducted properly," Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov derided the election results. However, those who decided not to place too much confidence in Putin's political acumen were sorely mistaken. Those who suspected that Putin is in increasing trouble with his electorate were proven wrong. Russia is a state that refused to fail. Putin knows that all too well. His faith in his resource-rich, prosperous nation cannot fail. He refuses to believe that his people face a harsher future. This is why in spite of his onus on foreign policy, he has focussed on economic transformation of Russia into a viable economic power that straddles the enormous Eurasian land mass. This economic powerhouse stretching from the Baltic Sea and the borders of the European Union to the Pacific Ocean and its dynamic Northeast Asian economies has tremendous economic potential and political clout. Tax reform, tightened budgetary control, deregulation, land and judicial reforms, trade politics were all the hallmarks of the Putin period as president and the Russian people and the world ought to expect much of the same in the years to come. Putin has highly developed antennae. The West wants Russia to be more open, and Russia wants the same of the West. Western powers reaction to Putin's success at the polls has been somewhat muted. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton "took note" of Putin's triumphant return to the Russian presidency. Other Western leaders were no less dismissive and caustic in their embarks. "I take note that Putin is our interlocutor for years to come," observed French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, perhaps tongue-in-cheek. "I promised you we would win. We have won. Glory to Russia," Putin expounded. Again, this is no silver-tongued assertion of a maverick politician. Machiavellian, Putin can certainly be. To realistically value the true worth of the natural resources of Russia requires pricing the priceless riches of Russia and Putin understands his country's strength very well. The question is whether a Putin victory can help animate the political life of the world's largest country in terms of geographical landmass. "We won in an open and fair struggle," Putin told his supporters. The pattern is familiar. Few expected Putin to fail. Putin's nearest rival Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov fell short of 20 per cent. This was enough to make a run-off against his second-placed rival unnecessary. Nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky stood no chance. Ex-parliamentary speaker Sergei Mironov, too, was a hopeless case of incompetence. Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov was livid, insisting that the presidential polls were rigged. Putin's rivals alleged widespread election violations. Unperturbed, Putin now seeks a third term in office self-assured that his star is fast rising and so is that of his country. China has metamorphosed from foe to trusted friend. There were times of tension in the past and mistrust. But there are strong forces pushing the two countries together. However, Putin's biggest headache will not be triggered from east or west, but rather from its troubled tremendously long frontiers with the Muslim countries to the immediate south of the sprawling country. Russia itself has more than 20 million Muslims even though the vast majority of the country's inhabitants are nominally Orthodox Christian or essentially atheist and agnostic, a legacy of the long Communist rule. If Putin's voice is to resonate in the Arab and Muslim world he must be heard in the West too. The Kremlin has not been particularly sympathetic to the cause of the Arab Spring. The Russian economy has grown in leaps and bounds in recent years. Industrial capacity, standards of living consumer consumption, especially of luxury goods, and car ownership has increased exponentially with it. "Putin is a thief," thundered Russian anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny. This is not a glib remark. The best approach is patience. Russia has serious problems with its neighbours to the south and that includes countries such as Georgia and other less submissive and compliant former Soviet republics. The Caucasus Region remains the most explosive of Russia's political predicaments. To appreciate just how remarkable this is, consider the two former Georgian autonomous breakaway republics that have been supported by Putin's Russia and have thrived under the auspices of Russian military and financial backing. Neighbouring Chechnya, another Caucasusian concern, has bedevilled the Russians with growing anti-Chechen xenophobia and racism. Belsan, the tiny town that suffered terrorist attack on a school that killed over 330 hostages including school children in 2004 is imprinted on the national psyche of Russians as a symbol of their struggle against terrorism. Russia, too, has backed its beneficiaries in the Caucasus. Putin's Russia has been the primary benefactor of such client states. More than 90 per cent of the people of Abkhazia voted for Putin, much to the consternation of Georgia. And, 80 per cent of Abkhazians hold Russian citizenship and most also carry Russian passports. Putin may be hoping that if he stamps his feet firmly enough, the West will show Russia some leniency. Having won a handsome majority at this week's presidential poll, Putin should now scramble to recover their confidence. Putin reaffirmed his position on South Ossetia and Abkhazia signaling that he intends to reassert Russia's former omnipotent position in the countries of the now defunct Soviet Union. Putin does not want Russia to be lumbered with enemies along its long borders. But his main worry remains his own opposition forces closer home. There is ample reason to suspect that the Russians are fast learning from the lessons of the Arab Spring. Saint Petersburg, Putin's hometown and Russia's second largest city, has emerged as a hub of anti-Putin frustration. Putin's first term as president from 2000 to 2004 is widely viewed as a golden era of Russia but not everyone looks back fondly to that particular period. Indeed, many Russians suspect that the worst aspects of Stalinism were adopted by Russia strongman Putin. The Russian authorities, however, are not sitting on their hands. Putin has a clear economic agenda. Economic liberalisation tops his priorities. He instituted land transaction bill and joint stock company law and other long overdue reforms. Still, income disparities and social inequalities have widened melodramatically. Thirty million Russians, or 20 per cent of the population, live below the poverty line. Russia has only a quarter of the United States' GDP per capita income. The Bretton Woods institutions now have a powerful say in Russia's economic policymaking. The International Monetary Fund formally began interfering in Russia's economic affairs in 1993 when the country suffered a four-digit inflation rate. The Duma adopts budget and reform legislation and Putin's third presidential election will see him overseeing radical changes. Russia is to host the 2012 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in the Far Eastern Russian port city of Vladivostock later this month. The Nuclear Security Summit scheduled for September and to be convened in Seoul this month could be the first international event where Russian President-elect Putin would officially be representing his country as president. "Putin will soon understand how absurd it is for Moscow to try and keep the southern and northern halves of the Korean Peninsula at equal distance," purported the Korean Herald. A clear-eyed approach would help in dealing some of the prickly strategic questions that Putin will have to wrestle. More controversially, many Russians believe that the country needs to reassert itself in the international arena. This is provoking a political in the West and now in Arab countries that experienced the Arab Spring. This war or words between Moscow and its Western and Arab adversaries will be a forlorn exercise unless that changes to a more accommodating encounter and compromise be the byword of future exchanges. But Putin is not a leader to contemplate granting concessions easily. It is enough to make one suspect that Putin actually enjoys inflicting pain on his enemies. At some point, reality will catch up with Russia and an Arab Spring in Putin's heartland will cause considerable commotion. When it does, Putin will face a public reckoning.
