Front Burner - Understanding Vladimir Putin’s grip on power

Episode Date: September 13, 2019

Today on Front Burner, CBC’s Moscow Correspondent Chris Brown takes us through Vladimir Putin’s decades-long grip on power, and whether or not a popular protest movement and falling approval numbers could signal change for Russia's political future.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. On Thursday, raids were carried out in about 40 cities and towns across Russia. There are these videos that show masked guys in black breaking down doors.

The targets? Critics of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The highest profile of these critics, Alexei Navalny, says, quote, Putin is very upset. Indeed, we expect some hard times coming, but we never actually had easy times. We won't give up. We will regain power and continue fighting against crooks and thieves. This all follows some major losses that Putin's political party suffered in local elections in Moscow earlier this week,

and a summer of large protests against his government. Today, we're talking to the CBC's Russia correspondent Chris Brown about Putin's grip on power, and whether any of this changes it. This is FrontBurner. Chris, hello. Hello, Jamie. It's such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. I've been wanting to spend some time with this story for weeks now, particularly after the municipal elections, but I keep getting distracted by the Canadian election. So I'm so glad that we have you here today to dig into it.

Well, let's just put it this way. Canadian elections are a lot more competitive. They're a lot freer and they're a lot more unpredictable in terms of who's going to win than what you see here in Russia. A little bit more open. So let's talk about these elections that just happened in Russia, these local elections. And Vladimir Putin's party, they didn't do so well, right? They didn't do so well. You know, depending which way you look at it, it's a glass half full, half empty kind of analogy. What's significant about it is that the level of opposition going into these elections was higher than perhaps what the Kremlin expected. And I think the outcome was worse than what they expected.

Pro-Kremlin politicians have lost a third of the seats in Russia's capital, a disappointing score for the ruling party and its allies, who previously occupied 38 out of the 45 seats. Let's be clear, these are not particularly powerful jobs that people were running for. But what really seemed to galvanize things and what motivated people and motivated the protesters was that they weren't fair. I mean, it was just obvious. It was rigged from the start. Yasmin Fahmy is furious. Together with thousands of others,

she signed her name in support of a social liberal candidate in Moscow's upcoming local elections. But then the electoral commission decreed that the candidate was not allowed to stand. We weren't given an explanation. They just said, that's not your signature. That was it. And that gave opponents sort of a common cause to rally around. It got people out in the streets.

And it posed a whole bunch of problems in terms of how you deal with this kind of, there's a word for it here, it's called non-systemic opposition. And it sounds a bit heavy, but it's significant because you have two kinds of opposition in Russia. You have the kind that sits in the Duma, that's effectively allowed by the Kremlin. They have parameters that they can, you know, behave within. They can propose legislation. They can do some things. But what they cannot do, they can't go right after the president, they can't criticize Putin, and they have to color within the lines. And then you have the folks out in the street, they're the non-systemic opposition, and they're the ones that the government is quite worried about. Opposition figure Alexei Navalny encouraged tactical voting in the Moscow vote, telling his supporters to pick anyone but a Putin-backed politician.

telling his supporters to pick anyone but Putin-backed politician. In general, we can say that the tactical vote worked, and it worked much better than we had expected. And, you know, you mentioned before that it became clear that these elections were rigged. I know this might seem like an obvious question, but how so? Well, just in terms of who could run. I mean, they set the bar very high. If you want a challenge for a seat, there's 40- odd seats in Moscow City Hall, for example, you had to go out and get thousands of signatures in order to mount a challenge if you weren't with one of the authorized parties.

And you bring in your signatures and they get scrutinized. And the chief electoral person says, oh, sorry, all of these signatures, or at least hundreds or thousands of them, we don't believe them. We think they're fake. When they say that the opposition was not allowed into the polls, this is not true. About half of this group is allowed and will participate in the elections.

As for the rest, we carefully examined the documents. We wanted to register them, but unfortunately there were a number of violations of the law that did not allow us to do this. And this is what happened not just in one or two or three or four cases, but in dozens of cases, and really only to so-called independent candidates, notably people that were associated with Alexei Navalny, who is an anti-corruption crusader here. He's the best known foe of Vladimir Putin, and the Kremlin hates him, hates him so much you can't even hear his name on state television. I want to talk about state television with you in a moment, but this idea that the bar was so high

to be able to run in the first place, the fact that the outcome was worse than what the Kremlin wanted, does that say something to you about what's happening there? was worse than what the Kremlin wanted. Does that say something to you about what's happening there? I think it has been discernible for the last 18 months at least that something has been brewing in Russian society. There is a tension there, and it's a tension between the people and the government. And it's manifested itself in a number of ways. After the World Cup came, that was a great high moment for Russians.

A few snubbed invitations haven't stopped Putin from scoring points off the soccer pitch as well. Countries like Italy and Austria have coaxied up to him. For now, at least, the focus is on football, not the international violations which have formed much of this country's recent history. And it kind of camouflaged some of the angst that was going on over a cut in pension. As soon as the World Cup ended, you just saw Putin's popularity ratings drop. Russia's widely unpopular pension reform bill would raise the retirement age for men from 60 to 65 and from 55 to 60 for women. Students, business people, pensioners, almost all parts of Russian society

turned out for this protest. And so this was seen as a rebuke to the ruling class. And that has been the political tremor that has been rippling through this country. And I think it very much worries the Kremlin. They look at street revolutions, Arab Spring. worries the Kremlin. They look at street revolutions, Arab Spring. They look at what happened in Maidan in Ukraine in 2014. These are the scenes that triggered the breakup of Ukraine. They do not like large crowds. They don't like protests. And they do everything they can to stomp them out. And can you tell me what they've been doing to stop them? Because there

have been sort of tens of thousands of people in the street throughout the summer. Well, I mean, in some cases, some people got horrific, terrible jail sentences. One guy who went up and, you know, sort of confronted a cop. And then as he was leaving, he turned around and sort of tweaked the guy's visor. He got thrown in jail for three years. Wow. And then in another case, someone else who had gone to these, a number of these protests, got thrown in jail for four years. Again, for breaking a law that says you can't go to multiple unauthorized protests. So we saw people carted off by their, you know, arms and legs by the hundreds. Most of them were released.

And what they've decided to do since then is to make an example of just a few. And I understand, too, there have been further crackdowns even after these elections on the weekend. there have been further crackdowns even after these elections on the weekend. Yeah, we've just seen in the last 48 hours, you know, one of the largest police operations for years in Russia. My daughter called me and said the police came to search the apartment. Actually, they cheated their way into the apartment because she opened the door for a neighbor. A thousand police officers, according to opposition figures, going to 36 different cities, either searching people's homes or going into their offices, seizing laptops, seizing notebooks,

seizing phones, everyone connected to Alexei Navalny. This time he got really upset because of the tactical voting. As his offspring, his sweet child, I would say, the United Russia Party has been busted in Moscow and seriously beaten in the regions. So this has been sort of the post-election crackdown that the security services have done. Do you think that Putin's hold on power is actually being threatened here? have done. Do you think that Putin's hold on power is actually being threatened here? If you look at the response of the security services to the protests over the summer, you look at the follow-up response now, that tells me that there is concern.

But how deeply worried, you know, that's a very, very tricky thing. We know in the past that in terms of people who are rivals to Vladimir Putin, there are very few in Russia. They have either all been driven out of Russia, or in some cases, most notably Boris Nemtsov, assassinated. Shot in the back four times, just before midnight Moscow time. Tonight, President Putin condemned the killing. But many will believe this was the work of assassins close to the government.

You know, I want to talk with you a little bit today about how it is possible that Vladimir Putin has managed to stay in power in one form or another for two decades. You know, my understanding is that when he took power in the late 1990s, he wasn't expected to, you know, stay on as president of Russia. He was kind of like a stopgap measure. Well, he certainly was unexpected. I mean, he had no, he didn't really have much of a national profile. He had briefly headed the secret police. He had jobs, senior jobs in St. Petersburg. But really, it kind of came out of the blue. Vladimir Putin, the career spy, talks about establishing what he calls a dictatorship of the law, fight corrupt bureaucrats, and strengthen the central government. I think, you know, when we talk about Vladimir Putin, he's such an interesting figure

because there's diametrically opposed ways of seeing him in the West and in Russia. Here, there's a great many Russians who have a ton of respect for all that he's done. And they see someone who came into an extremely difficult job in an extremely difficult situation and fixed a country that was essentially broken. Its economy wasn't working. Its institutions weren't functioning. The greatness that had sustained in the psyche of a lot of Russians throughout the Cold War, that was gone. And Putin came in and he kind of fixed it. And that kind of continued to a point.

And then it stopped. And I think this is sort of where we pick up the story now. And a lot of Russia's economy is built on oil prices and natural gas. And when those prices kind of collapse, Russia's economy really suffers. And then you have the sanctions that the Western nations put on as well. And so you sort of had a perfect storm that kind of began developing right around 2014, 2015. And that's kind of what's led to a lot of his problems now. But he has this great residual sense of almost goodwill from a lot of Russians, even people that don't really like him, respect him. This idea that he's been able to craft this image for himself, you mentioned that this is in part because he was able to sort of unify the country

and take the country out of a very difficult time. I wonder if it also has something to do with his ability to sort of craft this image. And you mentioned state television before. Right. I mean, look, there is a certain stereotypical idea, I think, that a lot of Russians have of what a great leader is. And for a lot of Russians, a stable government, a good government is actually not what we think of in Canada. It's not, you know, an independent judiciary, you know, strong free elections and so forth. It's actually a strong leader. It's almost like a tough guy.

So you've probably seen the pictures of him rolling around on the judo mat or riding bare-chested on a horseback. A shirtless Putin braved the cold waters of a mountain lake in the Siberian wilderness. And so Putin has really crafted that image of a guy who's involved in really everything. It's not even so much that he's at the top of a pyramid or at the top of the food chain. It's actually more to visualize it like he's the guy in the center of a huge hub that's Russia with all the spokes leading out from him. And yes, it goes into the media, but it also goes into the economy. It goes into the police and the security services and so forth. So his fingerprints are on everything here.

I don't even think the American president has as much sort of influence on the machinations of the country as what Vladimir Putin does. One of the most amazing things to me when I moved here was they have this event once a year where it's like an open, it's a town hall, if you will, for the whole country. And it lasts for hours, like four hours. And Putin sits there in the front with all the TV cameras on and people phone in and they ask questions and they say, please, you know, fix my road or our hospital doesn't have enough doctors. What are you going to do? Or like these are some, in some cases, very local issues, but they come to the guy. And Putin is the guy who then tasks everybody else to kind of fix things. This St. Petersburg truck driver complained about high gas prices.

Blame the energy ministers, said Putin, who had all of his nervous-looking cabinet ministers at the ready to explain why things are going wrong. So there is, again, a very deliberate bond that they try to create between him and the people. And, of course, when something doesn't go right or it's not working, it's never the czar, the guy at the top. It's the people in the middle who aren't doing their job. And so that also largely explains why his popularity has been able to stay so strong, is that people really often don't see him as the cause of the problems, but the people in the middle. And what role does sort of the state media play in all of that? So one of the things that is fascinating here is that if you turn on the TV set, most of the news that you will see is all paid for and funded by the Kremlin.

They have a very large domestic state TV system. And of course, we've also seen RT. You can get that in Canada. That's also part of the Russian state TV system. Alexei Navalny's candidacy has been rejected by the Central Electoral Commission. The irony of this whole story is Alexei Navalny has been basking in the love of Western politicians and Western media outlets. But really, today's decision shouldn't have come as a surprise to anybody. And for many, many years, state TV was really the only way that Russians got their news.

And what you've seen of late is, just like everywhere else in the world, that market is fracturing. And so now, you know, there's Russian bloggers and Russian documentary makers and people who cover the news independently. They get millions and millions of views on YouTube and so forth for their own stories. on YouTube and so forth for their own stories. And that's eating in somewhat to this power that state TV has over the way that Russians see and view the world. But you also mentioned earlier that the economy is not doing very well in Russia and bad economies topple leaders all the time. So could you tell me how Putin has managed to avoid the sort of leadership change

that we've seen elsewhere in the world, popular uprisings or just like plain old elections? There's an immense level of corruption in the economy here. And there's also an immense amount of state ownership of the large industries. So you have a ruling class that is profiting from these crown corporations. And a lot of them obviously have to do with oil and gas and natural resources so on the one hand yes the economy isn't isn't growing but on the other hand this ruling class is continuing to benefit and they're continuing to get rich off of it and

this is some of the things that Alexei Navalny is constantly pointing out with his anti-corruption videos he He's a czar of corruption. He's the basement of this corruption. And he's personally involved in corruption, and he's encouraging our officials for corruption because it's his way of ruling the country. But a couple of things also mitigate against that. One, Moscow has become, in some cases, a very beautiful city.

They have poured a gazillion dollars into Moscow, building metro lines, building parks, fixing up buildings, bike lanes. I mean, we've talked about, I've done stories on this. In some ways, some parts of the city are a model of urbanization. And it's really, really interesting because the quality of life has improved for people in the capital. I think there's an old saying somewhere that revolutions begin in capitals. Well, they've done their best to revolution-proof Moscow by spending an awful lot of money in it. Each year is better because a lot of new streets, new parks.

I think it's Moscow each year better, better, better. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. I'm also interested to hear your thoughts on Russia's moves abroad and how this might help Putin hold on to the reins of power. So, you know, from where I'm sitting, these past few years have been tough on Putin's public image.

You mentioned this at the beginning of the conversation too. You have the annexation of Crimea in 2014, followed by sanctions from the U.S. and allies, including Canada. So Canada's position is absolutely clear that there are no grounds whatsoever for bringing Russia with its current behavior back into the G7. The shooting down of a passenger plane over Ukraine. A somber ceremony paid tribute to all 298 people who were killed. Dutch-led investigators said they have hard evidence that the missile used to bring the plane down

belonged to the Russian military. A former Russian double agent and his daughter were poisoned on British soil. The insider learned that suspected Skripal poisoner Alexander Petrov is really Alexander Mishkin, a medical doctor with Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU. Meddling in the U.S. elections, support for Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria. There's a lot of bad press. And does this hurt him or help him domestically?

Until now, or I say until about a year ago, it was probably more of a help. I think of late, it may have become more of a hurt. I think one of the things you have to understand is that a lot of people here, even ones that maybe don't support Russia, still see Russia as a great power. They see it as not, you know, like a big Finland or a Germany or something. They see it as on the same level as the United States and China. And great powers don't follow others. They set their own way and they do their own thing. And then they attract other countries to follow them. And that is the mindset, I think, of the ruling elite here. So for a lot of people

here, they'll look at the United States and they'll say, well, the Americans meddle in elections, so we can too. The Americans send their armies into foreign countries and start wars. That's what we do as well. That's not the prism, the one that you described off the top. That's not the prism that many people here see Putin's foreign exploits in. It's substantially different. I think the problem is that obviously the sanctions have bitten, foreign investment has fallen off, the economy is anemic. If oil prices had stayed very high, and the economy

was chugging along, most people would be willing to just tolerate these foreign policy gambits. But that's not what's happened, particularly with Ukraine. Ukraine dominates the state television shows here. And I think in the next little bit, you're going to start to see some Russian moves to maybe cut a deal with the new president of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, on ending the war in eastern Ukraine. And I think that will be an important step for Russia in terms of trying to normalize relationships, at least with some parts of Europe. And I would imagine that this would play well for him at home because it could mean the alleviation of some of these sanctions that have, you know, hurt the economy. You know, when we started this conversation, we were talking about

how there were some very real election losses for Putin's party. And, you know, we've been talking about these large street protests. You know, I understand the year 2024 will be the end of his second term in office. The really interesting thing is this 2024 situation. By law, according to the Constitution, he has to give up power then. He can't stand for another term. But as we saw in 2008, he orchestrated a switch, became the prime minister, and then he became the president again when that term was done. I think going up to 2024, there's a lot of people in and around that circle that are watching. They're trying to position themselves to be in

the best position they can for that transition. I think that creates uncertainty. And I think that is also what you're seeing here. All right. Well, that feels like a good note to end on. Chris, thank you so much. This was a really informative conversation. I hope you'll come back on soon. Thanks for having me, Jamie. So last night was the first federal leaders debate hosted by McLean's and City TV. But there was one notable absence, Mr. Justin Trudeau. I think we need to examine our whole tax code. I think I found some consensus. Our tax code is so confused. I want to hear that. Andrew Scheer, what's the consensus?

I think I found some consensus. I think we can all agree that Justin Trudeau is afraid of his record, and that's why he's not here tonight. He has made life more expensive. We can agree on that. I'm glad we agree on the hard points. We can now sing Kumbaya and keep going. There's just one English language debate that all five major parties are expected to attend.

That's on October 7th. major parties are expected to attend. That's on October 7th. FrontBurner comes to you from CBC News and CBC Podcasts. The show is produced by Shannon Higgins, Imogen Burchard, Matt Alma, Chris Berube, and Elaine Chao. Derek Vanderwyk is our sound designer and technician. Our music is by Joseph Chavison of Boombox Sound. The executive producer of FrontBurner is Nick McKay-Blocos. And I'm your host, Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening this week and see you all on Monday. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.