Manege Square Moscow Riots Re-Ordered Political Balance in Putin’s Favor?

The Manezh violence, many Moscow analysts are suggesting, shows that ethnic Russians are organizing and that North Caucasian diasporas can no longer act as they please, while others are suggesting that these diasporas may respond with violence, especially since the militia quickly released those involved in Saturday’s violence, writes Paul Goble in the Georgian Daily. 

But one analyst, Mikhail Delyagin, the director of the Moscow Institute of the Problems of Globalization, argues that what took place in Moscow streets over the weekend has re-ordered the political balance within the tandem in Vladimir Putin’s favor and that this in turn points to popular support for a new wave of repression against minorities and the opposition.

In an interview with Andrey Polunin of “Svobodnaya pressa,” Delyagin suggests that before these clashes, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was gaining the upper hand in the ongoing political contest with Prime Minister Putin, but “the disorders on Manezh Square caused everyone to be afraid.” 

And that fear, in turn, has “removed from the order of the day questions of human rights, liberalism and modernization. After all, Delyagin asks rhetorically, “what kind of modernization can there be” if one segment of the population thinks it can act with impunity while “the rest feel themselves defenseless before this new Medievalism?”

“If the main thing for society is human rights,” the commentator continues, “then there is no question that Dmitry Medvedev will be the president in 2012. If [however] the main thing is security, then the president in 2012 will be Vladimir Putin for the very same reasons by which he became president in 2000.”

Thus, the Manezh events have reordered the political dynamics in the Russian Federation decisively in Putin’s direction, Delyagin says.

Recall that Medvedev instructed Russia’s prosecutor general and head of the Investigative Committee (SK) to punish those responsible for organizing the riots in Manege Square in downtown Moscow. 

“Riots should be classified as a crime, and person who committed them – should be punished,” he said, reports Itar-Tass news agency.