RUSSIA: Stability, wage increases and media domination worked, writes Daniel McLaughlin in Moscow.
Most Russians celebrated President Mr Vladimir Putin's landslide election win yesterday, but liberals and western governments are wondering whether vital reform or the erosion of basic freedoms will characterise the former KGB colonel's second term.
Early exit polls showed that more than two thirds of Russians backed Mr Putin, trouncing lacklustre rivals who could not compete with his media domination or image as a reliable, disciplined leader determined to restore prestige to the world's largest country.
Mr Putin (51) has brought stability to Russia after the mercurial last years of his ailing predecessor, Mr Boris Yeltsin, and since his 2000 election wages and pensions have grown steadily and are usually paid on time.
In a poor country with a deeply ingrained respect for a supreme leader - whether a tsar, a Lenin or a Stalin - Mr Putin put more food on people's tables and reassured them that the man in the Kremlin was at least serious and sober.
"I voted for Putin, of course. He stands for hope and order," said Mr Oleg Chukin (51) outside one Moscow polling station. "He's gradually sorting things out. Russia is an unpredictable place, we have all sorts of problems, lots of different nationalities. Above all we need order and discipline." Mr Putin is seen by many as the antidote to the financial and political chaos of the 1990s, and the halls of Russian power are now filled with his old colleagues from the security services rather than Mr Yeltsin's tycoon-friendly liberals.
"These elections are marking the end of the first 15 years of Russia's development that began with Gorbachev. The old experiment is over," said Ms Lilia Shevtsova, a political analyst at Moscow's Carnegie Centre.
"These elections will now legitimise a new experiment that will try to modernise the state through the use of the state bureaucracy." If that means a more authoritarian path, then so be it, many voters said yesterday.
"Sometimes you need one man with all the power in his hands," said Ms Irina Kolachova (65) after casting her ballot. "I like Putin's attitude." With national television under state control and the opposition in disarray, Mr Putin's failure to stop the grinding war in Chechnya, or rebel bomb attacks in the region and in Moscow, barely registered as campaign issues.
Most Russians are also happy to see billionaire "oligarchs" like Mr Mikhail Khodorkovsky - the Kremlin critic charged with fraud and tax evasion - behind bars, even if liberals and western governments have voiced concern over the rule of law here.
Mr Putin's future popularity could hinge on his ability to reform Russia's economy while keeping cash in people's pockets.
He has simplified a Byzantine tax system and strengthened property rights, but faces huge obstacles to his ambition of doubling the size of Russia's economy in a decade.
His pledge to slash bureaucracy faces opposition from millions of petty officials who survive on a diet of bribes, and Moscow's coffers are bled pitilessly by a massive military machine that is outdated and bloated but stubbornly resists reform.
Top second-term priorities will be boosting small businesses, modernising an archaic banking system and reducing Russia's dependence on unpredictable oil revenues.
The Kremlin may also face opposition to cuts in public spending and a drive to increase income from a housing system that has changed little since Soviet days.
The new government appointed by Mr Putin before the election strengthened the hand of economic reformers and emasculated cabinet opposition to the Kremlin. The new team is seen as deeply loyal to the president and capable of pushing his wishes through a compliant parliament in record time.
"Putin has created a political machine where policy dreamed up at the dacha over the weekend can be signed into law by the close of play on Friday," said Mr Roland Nash, chief strategist at Moscow's Renaissance Capital bank.
Most western investors - and governments - value the predictability that Mr Putin brings to Russia but balk at the pervasiveness of his personal power.
"Decision-making is increasingly with one man . . . that is not healthy or sustainable in the long term," said Mr Philip Poole of Dutch bank ING. "But, the other side of the coin is stability." But not all Russians are happy with that compromise, or with Mr Putin's old KGB colleagues creating a "managed democracy".
"I didn't vote for any of them," said Anya (32). "I don't like the war in Chechnya or the bombs in Moscow. And today Putin is pressing the oligarchs, but maybe tomorrow it will be the middle class like me." Anya refused to give her surname as she walked home with her child.
"Look, I have a baby, so I'd rather not. Who knows what could happen here?"