Putin set for re-election, but voters' interest waning

Most people in the dreary town of Balashikha say they will vote to re-elect President Vladimir Putin but speak in tones of muted enthusiasm and have low expectations.

Most people in the dreary town of Balashikha say they will vote to re-elect President Vladimir Putin but speak in tones of muted enthusiasm and have low expectations.

Vitali Matveyev, a concert pianist at the Moscow Conservatoire who lives in the town, which is just east of Moscow, said: "It's only the alcoholics in Balashikha who talk a lot about the election and that is because they have nothing else to do. For many, many people here life is too much of a struggle to think about these things."

Mr Matveyev, who earns $100 (£56) a month which he supplements with cash earned from playing piano at weddings, said he keeps hearing "official figures showing that we are better off than we were 10 years ago but personally I don't know anybody of whom this is true."

He was planning to vote for Irina Khakamada, a liberal candidate expected to win few percentage points at the poll. He said: "I know it is hopeless but maybe there are a few others who will do the same."

The victory tomorrow of Mr Putin, who is likely to win 80 per cent of the vote, is inevitable. But the real significance of the Russian presidential election in 2004 is that it is no longer an exercise in which the people genuinely chose a new leader. The democratic element in the election is purely decorative.

Few of the shoppers treading their way through the frozen slush outside the covered market in Balashikha were very concerned about the election. Tatiana Alexeyevna, an assistant to a doctor at the local clinic, said she would be voting for Mr Putin. She said: "I trust him more than anybody else." Asked why she trusted him she thought for some moments before saying: "He has raised living standards, pensions have gone up and things are more stable than before. At least he is making an effort."

Mr Putin clearly benefits from the high price of Russian oil and the aftermath of the financial crash of 1998. President Boris Yeltsin, so often sunk in an alcoholic stupor, was not a hard act to follow. Russians understandably feel more secure with Mr Putin in the Kremlin.

Even if Mr Putin did not have good news to report, he would still be re-elected since the two main channels of Russian television deal with bad news about the President by simply not reporting it. The savage little war in Chechnya gets barely a mention. The failure of Russian submarines to launch their missiles during an exercise viewed by Mr Putin was ignored. Reporting of foreign reaction to tomorrow's election gives the impression that the world hangs on Mr Putin's every word.

Beneath an outer show of compliance, Russians are deeply cynical about their rulers. None of the political and economic elite who made their fortunes out of the collapse of Communism are widely trusted. "The elite see life in Russia through the windows of their cars. They don't even know the price of bread," Mr Matveyev said.

Balashikha, on the edge of pine forests that stretch to Siberia, is not as poor as many Russian towns. It is close enough to Moscow for 80 per cent of its people to find work there, though they must travel two hours each way. And many of them, especially pensioners, cannot afford the 20 roubles it costs to travel in a cramped private van to the nearest metro station and wait for a public bus, which costs 13 roubles.

In his four years as President, Mr Putin's main achievement has been to eliminate alternative sources of authority to the Kremlin. In 2000 he started a campaign against Vladimir Gusinsky, the media mogul and controller of the television channel NTV.

Last October, Mr Putin jailed Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the richest man in Russia and the head of the Yukos oil company. Last December, the Kremlin was able to get a wholly subservient Duma elected. And prior to the election a new prime minister and government was installed which were even more compliant than their predecessors. There is no doubting Mr Putin's power, but what he is going to do with it remains unclear.