RUSSIA:President Putin is being accused of manipulating the system, writes Conor Sweeneyin Moscow
Every morning after he leaves his daughter to school, Vladimir Ryzhkov stops off for an espresso on his way to the office in central Moscow.
He's a little dispirited, because after 14 intensive years in politics, his job will disappear in a few months' time.
Ryzhkov, one of the last independent members of the Russian parliament, the Duma, can't win re-election because of changes to the law abolishing direct constituency elections. The last time, he slipped in on a strong personal vote in the Altai region, but now his Republican Party would need to win 7 per cent nationally to meet the minimum threshold - which he concedes is impossible. Instead all three liberal parties will splinter their vote and none will manage to get members elected.
He needs to find a different job, he says, but doesn't know what he will do. He will likely stay in Moscow instead of returning to his home town of Barnaul in Siberia.
"I'm not cynical, I'm a romantic," he says, before going on to make pessimistic comments about the state of his country. Sipping on his coffee, he shrugs his shoulders with a fatalism that seems old on a man who has just turned 40.
One of his last acts as a politician will be to launch a case at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg later this month. Ryzhkov will argue that the latest complex electoral laws are designed to stifle smaller parties like his, through burdensome registration processes. This will leave the way clear for a handful of parties, from both left and right, most of which obey the Kremlin's command to take almost all Duma seats, he claims.
Describing himself as a child of the Gorbachev era, Ryzhkov is also downbeat about the true economic state of his country. Russia had a chance to change but failed after the collapse of the USSR, replacing one form of empire with another, first tsarist, then communist and now the Putin era.
Although the country can boast 61 dollar billionaires, at least 15 per cent of people live below the poverty line and the gap between rich and poor is widening. But bad as it is, the current standard of living for most Russians has never been better, he concedes. Hence people find the current leadership acceptable.
He says the prosperity in the 1970s came on the back of a sudden sharp rise in oil prices, but the subsequent drop in the 1980s helped trigger the collapse of the old order. The paradox is that not until it faces tough times again will Russia's overall wellbeing get a chance to improve.
The current system has not created a European-style middle class, he argues, but a combination of corrupt businessmen and public officials who are doing nothing to develop the economy. Instead they collude for their own narrow benefit.
Politically, he describes President Vladimir Putin as a "neo-Brezhnevite" who wants to control everything but through a more sophisticated system than in Soviet times. He says Putin will personally decide by May of this year who will be elected to the Duma in the autumn. This applies, he say, even for members of opposition parties, such as the communists who beat the 7 per cent threshold.
Instead of operating a one-party state, Ryzhkov suggests the Kremlin wants to encourage the facade of a multiparty system. In the background, the president's men still decide who gets on TV, the only way to reach most Russians, and that doesn't include him, he says.
"Putin knows that even though I haven't been on TV for seven years I can still get around 5 per cent in the presidential polls, so instead, he's happy to promote other liberals, but those who don't really pose any threat.
"You know, the Kremlin is the only real player in Russian politics," says Ryzhkov, with a disheartened shrug. His contempt extends to most government ministers, comparing some to feudal dukes who wield medieval powers under a sovereign overlord.
After the Duma elections, Ryzhkov will be out of a job, as will President Putin when his second term ends next March.
As he walks down the road from the cafe to his office in the Duma, just across the road from the Kremlin, Ryzhkov says he doesn't believe the next incumbent of the presidential office will signal a change in policy either: "I think it will be the same, only the names will change. It's all about business and about oil money."