Thursday, August 30, 2018

Pension changes the only issue that threatens Russia's love affair with Putin

Russia's a funny place. Throughout all the iffy machinations that Vladimir Putin has take the country through in recent years - from invasions of neighbouring countries to expanding his nuclear arsenal to severely curtailing the free press to political assassination attempts and imprisonments - the Russian public has remained reasonably equanimous, with just the odd protest or demonstration, swiftly quelled. Throughout it all, Putin's popularity had remained unconscionably high, at around 80% plus.
Then he decides to increase the retirement/pension age and all hell is let loose. To help an economy that has been sputtering for some years now, and to cut back on government expenditure the country can ill afford to maintain, he proposed increasing the retirement age from 60 to 65 for men and from 55 to 63 for women, closer to the levels of most of the rest of the world, but something he once vowed never to touch. This has let to widespread unrest, and a huge hit to Putin's personal popularity rating, from 80% to 67% in just a few short months. Polls show some 90% of the population oppose the cost-cutting moves. Putin has since had to scale back his plans in order to placate the irate populace.
And THIS is the issue that finally gets the Russian people off their fat arses to challen? I'm almost tempted to quote Donald Trump: "Sad!"

No comments: