Analysis: Russia's referendum for Putin

BERLIN, Nov. 29 (UPI) -- The Russian parliamentary elections this Sunday have turned into a referendum on the future of President Vladimir Putin, and for that matter, the entire country.

Russia, aided by its vast energy resources, in the past years has made a comeback on the world's political center stage. However, backsliding democracy and fierce opposition to several U.S. foreign-policy initiatives have caused concern in Washington. Meanwhile, in Europe, Russia's strategic partner Germany is looking for a way to balance its foreign policy in light of restrengthened ties with the United States and its unwillingness to give up on Russia as a partner to solve global security issues. So for the West, this Sunday's parliamentary election in Russia may very well paint the way forward when it comes to relations with Moscow, though its result is rather foreseeable: All polls predict a comfortable majority for the United Russia Party (at least 60 percent), the group that got a recent boost when Putin announced he would be its main candidate.

The move proved to be tactically brilliant, as United Russia's "pro-Putin" campaign is virtually impossible to criticize, a Russian journalist told United Press International Wednesday. And that's notwithstanding the fact United Russia "hasn't really done anything positive for life in Russia," the journalist said.

While the winner is already chosen, nothing is certain concerning the consequences of those elections, however, and here is where those elections begin to matter for the West.

"Putin has in the past weeks turned this election into a referendum for his person," Wolfgang Eichwede, head of the Research Center for East European Studies at the University of Bremen, told UPI Wednesday in a telephone interview. "If his party gains more than two-thirds or even more than 70 percent of the vote, Putin would have a power position from where he could install any president he would like to."

And that president could be himself (if Putin changes the constitution, though he has promised he is not considering that option); or a weak successor from whom power could be transferred to the office of the prime minister (a post Putin is willing to take over); or one of his close aides, for example former Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who in a team-up with Putin as prime minister could then continue ruling Russia the way Putin likes it.

And there is one more option how Putin could influence Russian politics, Eichwede said.

Putin as the head of his party could become a political leader outside the boundaries of the constitution -- similar to the model that existed in the former Soviet Union, when the head of the Communist Party, the No. 1 man in the politburo, was de facto the most important figure in the country.

"Sunday can be seen as a test for all these options and for Putin's power position," Eichwede told UPI. "It is a massively planned try to turn Putin into an indispensable figure for Russia."

And if that plan materializes, expect more self-confident political initiatives from Russia, a country that is unwilling to be lectured in light of NATO's eastward expansion. Moscow's recent opposition to harsher sanctions against Iran has aggravated Washington.

But does the West really have to fear a new Cold War with Russia as a dominant superpower?

Most experts say no.

"Superpower is the wrong word," said Hans-Henning Schroeder, a Russia expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a Berlin-based think tank. "Big power would be more accurate," he told Deutsche Welle Online. "The United States is in another dimension entirely, and that's clear to the Russian leadership under Putin as well."

Observers have no doubt that Russia would like to reach the level of political influence of Germany, Britain or France; yet even considering its vast energy resources, Eichwede said there is still a far way to go for Russia until it is a real superpower like the United States.

"A resource world power is far from a real world power," he told UPI. "Such a position is dominated by other factors, such as innovation and technology." Russia's power and its threat potential are often "exaggerated," he said.