Russia sets stage for Putin presidency

MOSCOW, March 3 (AFP) - Russia prepared today to return strongman Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin for a record third term amid a tide of protests unseen since the Soviet era and mounting tensions with the West.

The 59-year-old EX-KGB spy's victory in Sunday's presidential ballot at this stage seems beyond doubt.

Forecasts by state pollsters show him storming to a first-round win with 60 percent of the vote and his Communist rival Gennady Zyuganov – a dour but seasoned lawmaker who is running for the fourth time — in second place with 15 percent. The tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov and the flamboyant but ultimately pro-kremlin populist Vladimir Zhirinovsky are expected to battle for third place.

But Putin's landslide victory may only mask an era of political uncertainty that contrasts sharply with the current prime minister's commanding first two terms as president between 2000 and 2008. The emotional street protests that erupted in response to a fraud-tainted December parliamentary ballot have since swelled into a broader opposition movement whose reliance on social media echoes the Arab Spring revolts.

Putin himself has put a brave face on the sudden show of public displeasure by telling Western media executives he was “very happy about this situation.””i think this is a very good experience for Russia,” he said this week. Putin has never before ruled from anything less than an impregnable position of power and few dare to predict how he might respond now.

“The system needs comprehensive political and economic reform. But (Putin) has neither the financial nor the political capital to accomplish this,” said Mark Urnov of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.