Why Putin is like Mugabe*

Zimbabwe's President Mugabe has been accusing his political opponents of intending to return farms to their dispossessed white owners.** Where have I seen similar populist rhetoric recently? Oh, right:

[image source]

The Nashi pamphlet this page comes from is an old story, but it is a good illustration of the Kremlin's main anti-Kasyanov talking point throughout the 07-08 election cycle - that he would surrender Russia's oil wealth to "the West" and take things back to the bad old days of the 1990s.

Here is a translation of the quotation attributed to Mikhail Kasyanov (under the banner headline, "This is what betrayal looks like"):

Having received the approval of American businessmen to enter the Russian presidential campaign, I have decided to sell Russian oil for three times less than the current market price.

And here is the actual quotation which appears to have served as the basis for the misquote above:

In his first interview with foreign media since announcing his candidacy, Mr Kasyanov said he would use the huge surplus from high oil prices to improve pipelines. He said: "Such projects would help lower the price of oil and gas on the market." A "fair price", he said, is $20-$25 a barrel. The price is now $63. "The world needs to think about alternative sources of energy, but use what we have now."

As Russian campaign spin goes, this is actually a pretty minor distortion, and no doubt Kasyanov would have been more accommodating, for example, to Western participants in the Sakhalin projects (in fact, one could argue that such accommodation would actually be in Russia's interest, since Western investment and know-how will likely be needed to maximize development of Russia's oil & gas sector). It's worth noting, though, that when Kasyanov was PM, he appeared to at least make a show of driving a hard bargain with Western investors in Russian oil projects.

Nevertheless, it served the Kremlin's interests to portray Kasyanov not only as the corrupt "Misha 2-percent" (a nickname acquired when two percent was enough of an alleged skim to seem offensive; never mind that the only proof of Kasyanov's corruption offered up to the public was a shady dacha privatization involving a sum which the barons of Rosneft and Gazprom would not bend down to pick up off the sidewalk on Tverskaya) but also as an agent of Western corporate interests. Similar nefarious intentions to forfeit Russia's oil wealth were ascribed to Vladimir Ryzhkov (apparently solely on the basis of a meeting with Dick Cheney).

Of course, the myth-making about Russian traitors would be nothing without the creation of a parallel mythology of Western politicos salivating at the prospect of carving Russia up and feasting on the oil wealth. Exhibit A in that book of fairy-tales is the infamous false claim that Madeleine Albright once stated Russia was unworthy of Siberia's oil wealth.

Unlike Zimbabwe, Russia is not a former colony of the West and has never been in danger of losing control of its natural resources. Apparently, Putin & Co. realized that the rhetoric of xenophobia and class hatred travels well to any country.

* Presumably one could fill many blog posts with why Putin is unlike Mugabe. I know almost nothing about domestic politics in African nations, so I would be on shaky ground trying to write such posts (as indeed I may be in trying to draw the comparison which provides the lede for this post). If you feel strongly about the distinctions, feel free to sketch out such posts in the comment section. Let me begin: Putin almost undoubtedly has more genuine popularity in his country than Mugabe does in his; on the other hand, Mugabe's political opponents seem to have actually made it on the ballot, an indignity which Putin refused to suffer.

** For all I know, this may be a valid accusation. My guess, however, is that Mugabe is attempting to spin a more conciliatory stance on the part of the opposition toward the farmers into some sort of treacherous behavior which goes against the interests of the state.