The question of trust in the Russian opposition cannot be reduced to who exactly speaks against the current president. Such an approach is too superficial. It leaves unanswered the main question: what exactly is proposed to change after one person leaves. If it is only about changing the president, but not about changing the structure of power, then such a program does not solve the core problem. It changes the face of the system, but does not change the mechanism that reproduces this system.
Through THE BASIC LAW OF POLITICAL ECONOMY this question becomes especially clear:
Personality → Behavior → Choice → Demand → Money
In a political system, the first link is not just an individual, but the type of power that shapes the entire environment. If power is built around a center, if institutions depend on the top figure, if courts, parliament, security apparatus and media lack independence, then the behavior of the system will reproduce itself even after the name in the presidential office changes.
That is why the slogan of changing the president alone is not enough. It may be emotionally understandable, because the person at the top becomes a symbol of the entire regime. But a symbol is not equal to a mechanism. A symbol can be removed, while the mechanism remains. Then after some time the system will again begin to produce the same logic: concentration of power, subordination of institutions, fear of independence, struggle against independent centers of influence, and the dependence of the entire country on a single political center.
The Russian problem is deeper than personal power
Personality
In Russia, the problem is not limited to one president. Personal power has become the upper form of a deeper structure. It is a state where power is historically concentrated in the center, where horizontal institutions are weak, and where political competition does not turn into a stable mechanism of alternation of power. According to most experts, power in Russia is concentrated in the hands of the president, courts and security structures are subordinated to the system, media are controlled, and parliament consists of the ruling party and loyal opposition factions. Russia is classified by independent agencies as a non-free country.
From this follows an important conclusion. If the opposition speaks only about changing the president, but does not speak about dismantling presidential over-centralization, it leaves the main source of the problem untouched. A new leader may come with different words, a different biography, different promises. But if he enters the same vertical structure, the position itself begins again to pull power to the center.
The system is stronger than the intentions of an individual. Even a sincere politician, once inside a super-presidential model, gradually faces the same choice: either limit their own power through institutions, or use the already existing apparatus. History shows that the existing apparatus almost always tempts faster than limitations are built. Therefore, trust in the opposition begins not with the question “who instead of him”, but with the question “what will replace this model of power”.
Why changing the president does not change the behavior of the system
Behavior
In the chain “Personality → Behavior → Choice → Demand → Money” behavior appears immediately after the first link. If the “personality of the system” remains the same, then behavior changes only externally. The system may begin to speak more softly, use different slogans, temporarily reduce pressure, open part of the media, return some political freedoms. But without a change in structure, all of this remains not a guarantee, but a gesture of a new center.
The behavior of the state must be fixed by rules, not by the mood of the ruler. If judicial freedom depends on the president, it is not judicial freedom. If parliament becomes active only because a new president allowed it to be active, it is not parliamentary power. If media receive space only because the new administration decided not to pressure them, it is not freedom of speech, but a pause in pressure.
That is why the opposition’s program must answer not only the question of the person, but also the question of the behavior of the future state. How executive power will be limited. How parliament will be protected. How the judiciary will cease to depend on the political center. How the security apparatus will be removed from personal loyalty. How regions will receive real powers. How the alternation of power will become a procedure, not a revolution.
If these answers are absent, trust remains weak. Such an opposition may be against the current regime, but it does not yet prove that it offers a different system. Being against the president is not enough. It is necessary to be against the very structure that makes the president the main owner of the state.
Choice without system change remains false
Choice
The next link in the chain is connected to choice. At first glance, changing the president creates a choice. New candidates appear, new parties, new slogans. But if the rules of the game remain the same, the choice quickly turns into a controlled form. The system can give people a sense of renewal, but not a real mechanism of influence.
Real choice appears only when a citizen can change power without fear, when a party can lose and leave, when a court can stop the state, when parliament can limit the government, when media can expose abuses without the risk of being destroyed. Without these conditions, choice remains a procedure without force.
In the Russian case, this problem is especially significant. Human rights organizations point to the expansion of repressive practices, including the use of labels such as “foreign agent”, “undesirable organization” and “extremist organization” against critics, civil structures and independent voices. Human Rights Watch in its 2025 report noted that Russian authorities intensified pressure on civil society and dissent, expanding repressive legislation and applying stigmatizing labels.
Therefore, trust in the opposition depends on whether it sees the problem in such mechanisms or only in who uses them. If it says, “We will come and use the state better,” this is a dangerous signal. If it says, “We will remove the state’s ability to function as a personal apparatus of one center,” then a different level of discussion emerges.
Society’s demand must be not for a new tsar, but for a new structure
Demand
Within the law, demand appears after choice. In politics, demand is expressed in what society requires from the future. If society demands only the departure of one person, it forms a short demand. Such demand can remove a figure, but it cannot build institutions. It is emotionally strong, but structurally weak.
An opposition that adapts to such demand also becomes weak. It tells people what is easier to hear: remove the president, change the team, start a new life. But a new life does not begin automatically after a change of face. It begins after the rules change, rules that every day force people, officials, judges, business and regions to behave differently.
The main demand must sound different: not simply another president, but limited power; not simply new elections, but guaranteed alternation of power; not simply new faces, but an independent judiciary; not simply freedom in words, but the impossibility of closing freedom again by one decision from above. This is no longer emotional demand, but systemic demand.
And here the main criterion of trust appears. If the opposition is afraid to speak about changing the form of power, about moving from a super-presidential model to a parliamentary or parliamentary-republican logic, about dismantling the vertical and redistributing powers, then it leaves itself the possibility of inheriting the same apparatus. Then its program becomes not the liberation of the system, but a struggle for access to the center.
Why parliamentary logic is more important than the president’s surname
For Russia, the question of the form of government has fundamental importance. The super-presidential structure constantly creates the risk of returning to personal power. Even after one leader leaves, the office itself remains a magnet for the concentration of powers. Therefore, real transformation must limit the presidential center and transfer political responsibility to parliament, parties, coalitions, public procedures and independent institutions.
Parliamentary logic does not guarantee an ideal state. But it reduces the risk that one person will again become the main source of decisions. In such a model, power is distributed, the government depends on the parliamentary majority, parties are forced to negotiate, coalitions can collapse, and a change of course takes place through the political process, not through a personal coup.
This is where the Russian opposition must pass the main test. It must clearly say that the problem is not only Putin as a person, but the very possibility of a new Putin appearing inside the old structure. Without such recognition, the program remains incomplete.
After 2020, changes were introduced into the Russian constitutional system which, among other things, reset previous presidential terms and strengthened the role of the presidential center in a number of mechanisms. Analysis of the constitutional amendments showed that they affected the balance between the president, parliament and the Constitutional Court. This is not a technical detail, but confirmation of the main problem: if the system allows rules to be reconfigured for the center, then changing the center without dismantling this logic does not create stable freedom.
Money and the economy as the result of political structure
Money
The final link in the chain is connected to money. A political system is always reflected in the economy. If rules depend on the center, money does not fix the result. Business cannot plan long term, property remains conditional, investment depends on political risks, and human capital leaves for places where rules are more stable.
The economy does not recover only because another person comes to power. Recovery requires predictable rules, an independent court, protection of property, open competition, regional autonomy, and a clear tax and legal environment. None of this can be built on the basis of the same vertical logic, where the main guarantor of the rules is simultaneously able to change those rules.
If the opposition offers only a change of president, it does not give the economy the main signal. It does not tell money, business and citizens that the result can now be secured. It only says that there will be another political center at the top. But money does not trust surnames. Money trusts a structure that limits arbitrariness.
Therefore, economic trust appears only when the political program shows a new architecture. Who limits power. Who protects the law. Who controls the security apparatus. Who guarantees that the new leadership will not be able to repeat the old model. Without these answers, the economy remains in waiting, and waiting does not create sustainable growth.
Can such an opposition be trusted
The answer depends on the depth of its program. If the Russian opposition proposes only a change of president, it cannot be trusted as a force of systemic transition. It can be trusted as a protest instrument against a specific regime, but not as a project of a new political structure. These are different levels of trust.
Protest against one person may be a necessary stage. But it is not equal to building a new system. The opposition becomes mature only when it formulates not just the rejection of the old leader, but a mechanism that will not allow a new leader to become the same center of power.
The main question to the Russian opposition must sound as strictly as possible: what exactly will be dismantled in the old system. Not who will leave, but which powers will disappear. Not who will come, but which institutions will become independent. Not which surnames will appear in the government, but which rules will stand above any surname.
If there is no answer, it means that we are dealing with a change of manager within the same structure. Such a change may temporarily weaken pressure, but does not guarantee a historical turning point.
The system knows how to survive people. It changes faces, slogans, style, but preserves its deep behavior if it is not dismantled institutionally.
Final conclusion
The Russian opposition cannot be fully trusted if it offers only a change of president. Such a program does not affect the initial link of the political chain. It preserves the same “personality of the system”, and therefore maintains the risk of the same behavior, the same false choice, the same weak demand and the same economic instability.
Trust begins where there is a demand for system change: limitation of presidential power, transition to parliamentary logic, independent courts, a real parliament, free media, autonomous regions, alternation of power and the impossibility of concentrating the state again in the hands of one person.
- Changing the president without changing the system remains rotation.
- Changing the system turns a political event into a historical transition.
Can the Russian opposition be trusted if it proposes not a change of system, but only a change of president?
No. Such an opposition cannot be trusted as a force of historical transition, because it does not answer the main question: what exactly will be changed in the structure of power itself. If the opposition speaks only about changing the president, but does not speak about dismantling the super-presidential model, it effectively leaves the old system alive.
Trust can be given only to those political forces that directly position a program of system change. Not merely promise to remove one person. Not merely speak about freedom and democracy. Not merely oppose the current authorities. But specifically explain what model of power must replace the old one and what mechanisms will make the return of personal dictatorship impossible.
The main criterion of trust must be extremely strict: the opposition must limit in advance not only the power of the current president, but also its own future power. If it demands an independent court, a real parliament, autonomous regions, free media, control over the security apparatus, local self-government and the dismantling of the presidential vertical, then it is speaking about system change. If these points are absent, then it is only a struggle for a place inside the old structure.
Therefore, the answer is direct: trust can be given only to the opposition that fights not for the presidential chair, but against the very model of absolute presidential power. If a political force seeks to replace the person at the top while preserving the mechanism of power, it is not a project of a new system. It remains part of the old logic, even if it opposes the old president.
Universal principle
This applies not only to Russia. The same principle applies in all countries where absolute power is attached to the president or supreme leader. If one person stands above institutions, if the court, parliament, security apparatus, media and regions depend on the center, then the problem is not only in the ruler’s surname. The problem lies in the structure of power itself.
Such countries today cannot be called fully democratic states. Democracy is not reduced to elections, a flag, a constitution or the names of offices. If power is not limited by an independent court, parliament, free media, real alternation of power and citizens’ rights, then what stands before us is not democracy, but a system of personal power with a democratic shell.
Therefore, changing the leader without changing the system does not create a real transition. It merely transfers the same mechanism into other hands. In any country where power is concentrated around one personality, political forces can be trusted only when they propose not simply replacing the person at the top, but dismantling the very model of absolute power and building a system in which no new leader can again stand above the state.
Iv.Spolan
Author of the model “Basic Law of Political Economy”
