Phillip Pan of the Washington Post offers some ideas about the meaning of Nikita Belykh’s appointment as governor of Kirov province – a move which destroyed the Union of Right Forces in one swipe, but inserted an unexpectedly fresh face into the governing coalition.  Wouldn’t it be nice if the governors could just freely compete in elections?

The appointment, which prompted accusations of betrayal by some of Belykh’s colleagues, is a sign of the uncertainty surrounding Russian politics as Putin confronts the country’s worst economic crisis in a decade and the fractured opposition tries to tap into rising public discontent and mount a new challenge. (…)

Although more than three-quarters of Russians continue to approve of Putin and Medvedev, 40 percent now say the country is headed in the wrong direction, compared with 24 percent in September, according to a recent poll by the Moscow-based Levada Center. About 43 percent said the country was moving in the right direction, and 18 percent declined to answer.