Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Spring Will Come to Russia

The New York Times. The Opinion Pages.

By GUY VERHOFSTADT

Published: May 8, 2012

But this time Putin faces a different domestic political climate. Even he cannot prevent the arrival of a Russian Spring if reform is permanently stifled. The West must also be ready and willing to play its part in pressing for change.The inauguration of Vladimir Putin on Monday for a third term as president of Russia represents the culmination of the Kremlin’s “managed democracy,” under which the political process remains arbitrary but the outcome is pre-determined.

The day after the March 4 presidential election, officials in European capitals and in Washington busied themselves drafting congratulations for Putin, while tens of thousands of people stood in Pushkin Square in Moscow demanding their rights.

I was there as Russian people called for new, free and fair elections and the registration of political parties currently outlawed by the regime. I was there as Russian people called for justice in the cases of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the late Sergei Magnitsky and Anna Politkovskaya. I was there when Russian people were bused in and generously rewarded for attending the political farce of a pro-Putin election rally.

In the aftermath of the biggest demonstrations in the history of modern Russia, outgoing President Dmitri Medvedev committed himself to political reforms, revision of electoral laws, greater political freedoms and direct elections of regional governors.

What could have been a legacy of the Medvedev presidency turned out to be futile. Putin has ruled out the possibility of holding new free and fair elections; limits have been placed on gubernatorial elections, and electoral bloc building has been banned. What was sold as a package of political reforms was in fact a further tightening of the screws on political opposition.