Eight years of Putin in the Russian Presidency: A balance

No people in precarious economic conditions can have much chance to be able to properly govern themselves democratically."

Aldous Huxley, Return to the Brave New World

	Eight years of Putin in the Russian Presidency: A balance
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Next Sunday, the 2nd of March, there will be presidential elections in Russia, and in May it will expand the mandate of the current president, Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin. The Russian chief executive was first-minister and assumed the highest executive position with the surprise resignation of Boris Yeltsin, on 31 of December of 1999. The previous president had serious health problems (although he lived almost 8 years more) and already had revealed his decision that Putin was his successor, at the time a figure little known inside or outside of his country. In August of last year, at the end of his second mandate, Putin's popularity is not less than 82%, which makes him the leader with largest approval.

However, in the majority of the western countries, he is accused of accumulating power, of adopting aggressive foreign policy, and making Russia retreat from the strenuous way on the road to democracy. Sorting through the eight years that Putin was in power will show that, though there have been errors and regressions, Russia is on a correct path and does not seem to have a risk of returning to what it was 25 years ago.

The western press bears a good part of the fault in the creation of the distorted image of Putin, while emphasizing some facts and ignoring others, something unforgivable today since the time has already passed in which sovietologists tried to guess the influence of each member of the Party according to his position in the parades and commemorations. Although the Russian political system is still hardly transparent (it is enough to see the mystery of the succession of Putin, whose candidate was nominated only in December of 2007, and the one that the current president will dedicate to when leaving office), there is an enormous amount of available information to anyone on the Internet, of half independent and half official and, in some languages (in English mainly, but not only English: the main Russian news agency, RIA Novosti, has versions in several languages). Although many still see Russia as a distant and mysterious country, there are no more excuses for disinformation.

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