EDITORIAL

“All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds” – Voltaire’s ‘Candide’

It may be the festive atmosphere of Maslenitsa, or just the fact that oil’s at $125 a barrel, but there’s a whiff of Panglossian optimism in the Moscow air this week.

The pro-Vladimir Putin camp in Russia’s presidential elections has plenty of reasons to be cheerful. At Luzhniki Stadium, Putin promised stability and appealed to nationalism. Then a Levada Center poll gave him 66 percent support in next Sunday’s vote. And a foiled terrorist plot to assassinate him may also boost Putin’s campaign theme of Russia under siege.

The liberal opposition has reasons to be cheerful, too. Sunday’s Garden Ring protest showed once again the strength of the “Fair Elections” movement. The liberals can also be pleased that the disparate opposition has remained more or less united on combating election fraud, changing the government and fighting corruption, while avoiding issues that they strongly disagree on. But there are serious problems with this bubble of mutual optimism.

According to German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz’s theory, reality is “the best of all possible worlds” and a certain amount of evil is necessary to prod the forces for good to combat it.

This fits well with both Putin’s campaign philosophy, that the threat of an “Orange Revolution” is necessary to whip up patriotism and unite Russians around a strong leader. It also fits with the liberal opposition’s main theme – that if Putin personally were replaced, Russia would become a non-corrupt, free-market paradise.

Neither of these optimistic scenarios may last very long – due the encroaching global economic crisis. Those people who believe that Putin can deliver on his promises would be disappointed if a second wave of the crisis forces him to carry out a tough austerity program. On the other side of the barricades, ordinary Russians may be shocked to discover that liberal opposition leaders support the same austerity measures.

Then the divisions will not be between Luzhniki and the Garden Ring. They’ll be between the 99 percent of ordinary Russians on one side, and the country’s billionaires on the other.