Democracy not linked to elections argues Putin

Sustainable social development is impossible without a competent state, while genuine democracy is a fundamental condition for developing a state designed to serve public interests.

Real democracy cannot be created overnight and cannot be a carbon copy of some external example. Society must be completely ready for using democratic mechanisms. The majority of people must see themselves as citizens of their country, ready to devote their attention, time and efforts on a regular basis to taking part in the process of governance. In other words, democracy is effective only when people are ready to invest something in it.

In the early 1990s, our society was inspired by the dissolution of the Soviet one-party rule and administrative command system, which went on right in front of people's eyes. It seemed that the transition to government by the people would be quick, especially since we had models of civilised and mature democracies in the form of the United States and Western Europe readily to hand. But the introduction of democratic mechanisms to Russia meant that nearly all of the necessary economic reforms were brought to a halt, and these mechanisms were later taken over by the local and central oligarchic elites, who shamelessly exploited the state and divided up the nation's wealth for their own benefit.

I know from my own experience that many honest and clever officials were working for the public benefit during that period. It is thanks to them that the state did not perish, that routine problems were resolved, for better or for worse, and some badly needed reforms were implemented, albeit inconsistently and slowly. But on the whole, the existing system proved to be stronger.

As a result, the democracy campaign of the 1990s did not create a modern state but provoked an under-the-carpet power struggle among clans and a feudal system with officials eking a living from their posts. Instead of a new quality of life we were lumbered with huge social expenses, instead of a free and fair society, we got arbitrariness by self-appointed "elites," who flagrantly disregarded the interests of common people. As a result, Russia's transition to democracy and a market economy was "poisoned" by people's steadfast distrust in these notions and an unwillingness to participate in the life of society.

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