Re:Agreed (Score 1)

To ordinary people the problem with Putin is that his primary and probably the only focus is on the large businesses, which he has explicitly stated during both of his election campaigns. From the outside it may look quite bright: Russia restores its influence in the post-soviet space, certain companies grow rich, military exports are increasing, the space industry survives, as does the nuclear industry, etc. But behind the curtains, there's a lot of internal problems which have received little to no attention during the 8-year presidency of Putin, and neither they did under Eltsin.

A lot of people who is dependent of the state budget (the military, most of medicine and education workers, pensioners) did not get a kopeck of these peak oil prices. It's becoming hopeless to them if Putin's course (or, as we get it from the mass media these days, "The Putin's Plan") doesn't get altered to take into account at least the most basic of their interests. To give you an example, among my relatives, a therapeutist of the highest category (as per the state ranking system) gets $400 a month, and one of the 30 top Russian Space Force officers gets $900 a month. The irony is that these people are treated as dependent and receive direct pressure from the authorities to vote and agitate for Putin's "United Russia" party.

To those who's relatively on their own, it is not much better, too. We have European price levels in Moscow, and the salaries of those who get paid according to the market are about twice as low, and we're glad we have that at least. Granted unaddressed low apartment building rates we've got a never-ending housing bubble all over the country, and to the most of those who do need a place to live in there's no way of buying a simple one-room flat. This is something Puting promised to solve from the very beginning, and has silently failed at. The problems of the "constantly emerging" middle class receive almost no attention, too, and it is effectively suppressed as the result.

From whom I've talked to, most don't treat Putin as an independent figure, but rather like the face of a team which is closely tied to the large businesses, which have evolved naturally from the oligarchy of the 90s and brought Putin to power in the first place. Provided this, there's usually no notion of dictatorship as such, but the analogy goes as far as equating "United Russia" to the CPSU. I've read an article of "The Guardian" recently, which comes surprisingly close to my personal opinion on the upcoming elections, here it is. Honestly, a couple of years ago I couldn't imagine my vote going to either of the parties mentioned there.