No one has any doubts that 2018 will be the year of the next extension of the presidential powers of Vladimir Putin. In the Russian political environment - that the pro-government, that the opposition - it is customary to call this procedure prolongation by elections. Meanwhile, the very name is completely mistaken and serves as a sophisticated form of self-deception, writes on the Observer journalist Vitaly Portnikov.

Elections are connected not only with the voting day, but also with honest - well, or relatively fair - competition in the pre-election period. With the same competitive political process. With the presence of representatives of the authorities and the opposition at least some kind of political views - well, with an interest in these views of the population. There is nothing like this in Russia and there is no trace.

In this sense, one can speak about elections even in authoritarian countries like Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe - a dictator who could compete with Putin in a concentration of power and inadequacy, received about the same number of votes as a representative of the opposition, was forced to falsify the results of the voting, in a long negotiating process and appoint a rival as prime minister. Therefore, Zimbabwe is a country in which the population has not yet forgotten what an alternative is. And Russia is a state in which the population has never known about it.

Of course, Yeltsin's election could still be called such - but then citizens chose not between figures and views, but between communism and its alternative, both times. When, however, the specter of communism finally disappeared from the political horizon, the non-alternative nature of "voting" proved to be easy to restore.

And in this sense, Navalny, calling for a boycott of elections because of his nonparticipation, is far less adequate than Sobchak, who is going to participate in these elections. For the Russian political regime, participation in the extension of Putin's powers is an honorable duty that still needs to be earned. Only Navalny with his overrated self-esteem and a sect of exalted fans may seem that his regime is really afraid. Navalny simply did not deserve permission to participate in the ceremony, and Sobchak - deserved.

Even if both alternative candidates participated in the "elections", they would still not be able to collect at least some notable number of votes about which we would have learned. Simply because under existing conditions this quantity itself can not be verified, and the authorities are not at all afraid of accusations of falsification. She does not care. And this is logical.

The authorities managed to establish a regime in Russia, most reminiscent of the regime of the so-called countries of people's democracy in the Soviet era. In a number of these countries there was a multiparty political system, but only all parties were built under authority, and power - under the Soviet occupiers. In our case, the invader is the KGB lump together with the criminalized business. The entire political system is built for this obshchak, United Russia is entrusted with the role of unifying and guiding, and all the others - the function of imitating differences.

I want to remind you that the famous "marsh" rallies began because of the falsification of the results of the parliamentary elections. And when I heard the belligerent cries of "we are the power!" From people who believe that the opportunists from "Fair Russia" were not given votes, I could not understand for a long time who lost the sense of reality - I or these seemingly sane and educated people. But now I have no more doubts. 26 years of corrupt Chekist capitalism led to the complete loss of this feeling by the entire adult population of Russia.

Does the lack of elections, coupled with the complete control of the power behind the political situation, lead to a dead end from which there can be no way out? No, it does not mean. Just in such a total control lies the future collapse of the regime.

Mugabe and others lasted so long just because they released opponents into the arena, let them participate in politics and even win - and then in one fell swoop dealt with the dissatisfied. Putin's total control is a guarantee that the discontented in power do not know either we or Putin. That will allow them to act in a crisis situation.

In the end, when the GDR regime collapsed, the regime's allies quietly united and, before the free elections, created the new leadership of the country.

I do not rule out a similar one for Russia either. One has only to accustom oneself to the idea that the temporary alternative to Putin after his collapse will not be Navalny or Khodorkovsky, but the most adaptable person, who is assured that if there is no Putin, then there will not be Russia either. In Russian political history, it has always happened that way - and there is no reason to think that there will not be this time either.