THE just-concluded Russian elections are a landmark. Although the incumbent was re-elected, the fact that a presidential election took place, that there was little apparent cheating, and that the opposition is abiding by the result marks the tentative beginning in Russia of a new political era.
The elections must also be read as an endorsement of Russia’s reforms, however painful and mismanaged they have been. Whatever else one can say about them, the elections did present the Russian people with a clear choice, not between corruption and honesty or between chauvinism and moderation but between a continuation of the transition to a free market and the reinstitution of elements of central control. Faced with the question of whether to continue the reforms, the majority of Russian voters said, “Yes.”
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