William flew over russian politics

In a witty video on the internet, Russia’s Communist Party mocks Dmitri Medvedev and Vladimir Putin by comparing their intensifying battle over the presidency to the end-of-theworld disaster movie 2012.

Leading think-tanks also have apocalyptic visions, issuing warnings that next year’s presidential election will be a moment of truth for Russia’s survival. The Centre for Strategic Research, a state-funded body, warned that a slump in public trust was “strikingly reminiscent” of the late 1980s when the Soviet Union was nearing collapse. The Institute of Contemporary Development was gloomier. “We will choose not just between programmes and personalities, but between the beginning of change and the end of hope,” it said.

The institute supports Mr Medvedev for a second term as a modernising President, implying that a return for Mr Putin, the Prime Minister, would bring stagnation.

Eleven months before the election voters are being presented with two rival camps within the PutinMedvedev “tandem” that has ruled since 2008. Disagreement over the campaign in Libya, Mr Medvedev’s decision to force Putin allies out of running key state companies, and a Kremlin report last week urging the President to denounce the Soviet Union as part of a “de-Stalinisation” programme all point to division.

Voters however, will not be asked to choose unless the two retract pledges not to stand against each other.

Instead, they are bystanders while the Kremlin elite engage in what Winston Churchill once described as a fight between bulldogs under a carpet — there is plenty of growling but no real picture who is winning. Every bark is analysed to understand whether Mr Putin will back Mr Medvedev or stand again.

The one thing nobody expects is a free and fair election, after a decade in which Mr Putin has concentrated his power. Mr Medvedev, 45, heads the generation that grew up under Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms. Analysts said that he lacks the strength to resist his mentor’s return. Some argue that differences between them are cosmetic and that the real issue is who can best preserve the regime in the face of endemic corruption and rising discontent.