Radical Change Terrifies Russians More Than Economic Pain – Economist Correspondent

What You Need To Know:

✅ Russian parliamentary elections are an important legitimizing ritual;
✅ “Results themselves aren’t going to make a huge difference when it comes to the country’s policies and politics;”
✅ The elections are unlikely to change much as the country’s elite is preparing for the upcoming presidential election in 2018;
✅ “The idea of radical change, the idea of drastically shifting the country’s course, the country’s policies is more troubling and more terrifying than the economic pain that some Russians are feeling today.”

Russia’s parliamentary elections on September 18th had a lower turnout compared to previous elections, and fewer documented cases of widespread fraud. According to Noah Sneider, The Economist’s Moscow Correspondent, the Russian parliamentary elections are an important legitimizing ritual: “Results themselves aren’t going to make a huge difference when it comes to the country’s policies and politics.”

Early exit polls showed that United Russia, the party backed by President Putin, received 45% of the vote. The other three parties –The LDPR, The Communist Party and Just Russia, are what Sneider describes as so-called systemic parties, “none of which offer any sort of resistance to the Kremlin’s policies.” The elections are unlikely to change much, he says, as the country’s elite is preparing for the upcoming presidential election in 2018.

While Russian voters are mostly dissatisfied with the economic situation in the country, people are also afraid of change. “The idea of radical change, the idea of drastically shifting the country’s course, the country’s policies is more troubling and more terrifying than the economic pain that some Russians are feeling today,” says Sneider.

Hromadske’s Nataliya Gumenyuk and Kyiv Post’s Josh Kovensky spoke to Noah Sneider, The Economist’s Moscow Correspondent via Skype during The Sunday Show on September 18th, 2016 in Kyiv.