Public Spats Over Ukraine Reflect Lack of Unity in Russian Opposition
A public clash between a dissident politician and veteran rock musician this week over Russia's role in the Ukraine conflict reflects the broader lack of consensus among the opposition, pundits said.
"Whenever the opposition has to tackle fundamental problems such as what Russia is, who its friends and enemies are in the world and what we all stand for, the opposition disintegrates into little splinters," Anatoly Gorbunov, director of the Institute of Systemic Political Studies think tank told The Moscow Times.
"It is much easier to unite against President Vladimir Putin than to formulate an alternative vision and identity for Russia," he said in a telephone interview from Yekaterinburg.
In a startling but little-reported post this week, a member of longtime Kremlin critic Eduard Limonov's unregistered opposition party The Other Russia wrote on his blog that the "Russia Without Putin" slogan that over the last decade has become one of the symbols of Russia's opposition movement has turned into an "empty mantra" and lost its value.
"The president has started to make steps in the last years that deserve respect. It is difficult to deny Putin's accomplishments, such as preventing a war in Syria, victorious Olympic Games in Sochi and the reunification of Crimea with Russia," Alexei Pesotsky, a member of the St. Petersburg executive committee of the party wrote in his LiveJournal blog...
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...According to Gobunov, the squabbling between government critics reflects the broader problem that the opposition in Russia can only unite against the government but not in support of an alternative path for the country's development.
"The main problem is that whenever someone suggests a positive policy, all the rivals begin to criticize it so as not to let any one of the opposition leaders become dominant," he said.
"While the Ukraine conflict is ongoing, the opposition discourse has become based on emotions, so I don't expect anything positive to happen in this respect until the Ukraine situation is settled," he added.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/public-spats-over-ukraine-reflect-lack-of-unity-in-russian-opposition/505640.html
