MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. Later in the broadcast, should nonprofits be flexing more political and economic muscle? We look at the future of nonprofits.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIBut first, in a scene reminiscent of the Arab Spring and not seen in Moscow in more than a decade, tens of thousands of Russians turned out last weekend to protest the recent parliamentary election results. The official count favors Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party. But international observers and many Russians claim there was ballot stuffing and other fraud. Russians are also upset that Putin is running for president again next spring. If he wins another six-year term he'll hold the country's top job for as long as Leonid Brezhnev who led the former Soviet Union for 18 years.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIThe current unrest in Russian raises new questions about how Democracy will evolve in this formerly Communist nation and whether this week's public outcry marks a turning point or merely a short lived abbreviation. Joining us by phone from Moscow is Andrew Kuchins, senior fellow and director of Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Andrew Kuchins, thank you for joining us.

MR. ANDREW KUCHINSGlad to be on, Kojo.

NNAMDIThe protests over the weekend in Moscow, tens of thousands of people turned out of all ages. The Kremlin sent riot police to stand by but allowed the rally to take place. You arrived on Sunday just after it was all over. But what was the mood there and what do you see as the significance of these protests?

KUCHINSWell, the protests that took place on Saturday, they were the largest protests -- public demonstrations in Russia in about 20 years. You have to go back to the time before the collapse of the Soviet Union. So they're significant in and of themselves for that. More significance is greater because really there's been a feeling in Russia for at least the last eight years, perhaps somewhat longer, that politics have been fairly dead and that the Russian people have been fairly politically apathetic, kind of accepting implicitly a social contract of economic growth and prosperity that has occurred during the Putin period and that don't interfere into politics. Let the Kremlin take care of that.

KUCHINSWell, I think that came to a fairly abrupt and surprising halt with the backlash to the parliamentary elections.

NNAMDIIf you'd like to join this conversation, if you have questions or comments you can call us at 800-433-8850 or send us a Tweet at kojoshow, email to kojo@wamu.org. Andrew Kuchins, you mentioned the elections, the protests in Moscow and smaller protests in cities across Russia's nine time zones. What prompt it? By this month's parliamentary elections the results favored Putin's United Russia Party. But international observers and many Russians say the vote count was -- involved fraud or at least appeared fraudulent. What was at stake in the parliamentary elections and how did the alleged fraud affect the outcome?

KUCHINSWell, what was at stake was, in essence, a referendum on the leadership of Vladimir Putin and the type of political regime that he's established over the course of the last 11 years or so and its future. Having met with Putin just three or four weeks ago, I feel pretty confident that he did not see this coming, did not expect it. I think he was, like I said, was very, very confident. And his sense that, you know, Russia's future was -- you know, essentially what's happened in the last 11 years, during my leadership, it's been successful. And the system's not broke so don't fix it.

KUCHINSThat was essentially what the Russian people were saying. They're not satisfied with the existing system. They're not, I think, satisfied with the decision announced on September 24 that in effect Vladimir Putin would simply take the place of the current president, Dimitry Medvedev in the next presidential elections in early March.

KUCHINSAnd then the -- what appears to be significant evidence of falsification and fraud in the elections, it's hard to estimate how much, but on the basis from what I've been able to learn from reading and talking with people in the last couple of days, I think that probably the United Russia Party got somewhere along the line of only about 30 plus percent of the vote. And if you look at what they got the last time -- the last parliamentary elections four years ago in 2007, about close to 65 percent of the vote, well, that would in effect make a, you know, 50 percent cut in their popularity.

KUCHINSAnd perhaps the Kremlin decided that that was simply an unacceptable, you know, figure to what's being made public and hence their strong efforts particularly in Moscow, in St. Petersburg and the European part of Russia where the returns came in later to boost that.

NNAMDIIn case you're just joining us, we're talking with Andrew Kuchins, senior fellow and director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He joins us by phone from Moscow. You can join the conversation by calling 800-433-8850.

KUCHINSAndrew, even with the possible fraud, Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party got fewer votes than expected. Putin said he'll run for president next spring and he's still a popular figure in Russia. But yesterday two prominent men announced plans to run against him. Alexei Kudrin, the former Finance Minister and Mikhail Prokhorov, a billionaire industrialist who owns a share of the New Jersey Nets basketball team. Does either of those two individuals have a chance? And is it personally dangerous to challenge Putin like that?

KUCHINSWell, Kudrin himself did not announce that he'd be running for the president. What he said -- the former Finance Minister said, who was fired rather unceremoniously earlier this fall, was that he was ready to lead in the organization of a centrist right party. Now Prokhorov is one of the richest men in Russia. He had taken over for a brief period of time in the fall an independent political party. He had a run in with the Kremlin and the -- he decided to back off.

KUCHINSHe's essentially a very untested politician. It's very hard to predict, you know, how he's going to do. He faces a tremendous challenge in that any candidate at this point would need to garner two million signatures in order to qualify for -- in order to be officially registered for the presidency. And I think in order to do that, and it has to be done by January 19, it's a very tall task. I think he would need the support of the Kremlin in order to do that.

KUCHINSSpeculation here is that the Kremlin supports his candidacy. But the operative word I think, Kojo, here about the future of Russian politics is uncertainty, uncertainty on the part of the opposition -- it's not a united opposition -- about how to pursue their strategy. And also I think a lot of uncertainty within the Kremlin itself and how they are able to manage and to contain the damage.

KUCHINSThe only thing that I think you can say for certain is that while I think the certain type of Putinism, the kind of rule that Vladimir Putin has exercised when he was president and also in tandem with the current President Dimitry Medvedev, that is probably ended. And he's going to have to be more responsive to the concerns of the Russian people and their demands for better governance, less corruption.

NNAMDIWell, is it fair to say then that looking ahead what we might see resulting from these protests is the beginning of a new more open era in Russia? Prokhorov said, I think the society is waking up whether we want it to or not. That part of the government which does not establish dialogue with society, it will have to go in the new future. Do you think we might be seeing a more open era?

KUCHINSYeah, I think that's the case. You know, Russia's been kind of an anomaly and that it's too wealthy, it's too well educated for the type of kind of an anachronistic political system that it has. And what we've seen is the -- I think the sudden awakening of Russian civil society. I think also a younger generation of Russians who are less steeped in Soviet upbringing in that era. And they're demanding for a greater say in the way their country is run and for a great degree of pluralism.

KUCHINSHow this is all going to play out is very tough to predict, but I think the exciting thing is, the refreshing thing is, that politics has returned to Russia and has certainly made this presidential campaign over the next few months a lot more interesting to watch.

NNAMDIHere is Jennifer in Manchester, Md. Jennifer, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

JENNIFERYeah, my comment is it seems to me that Putin is trying to continue his Czar hold (unintelligible) he doesn't want the change. And (unintelligible) just everything that I've heard on the news and everything is that he's -- he played lip service to Democracy, but he runs the country as if he's like the supreme ruler. And he's not really an elected official because he doesn't allow competition. And then the people are believing that, I'm sorry, that it's a democracy and are trying to demand it. And I just -- it just seems that there's a lot of conflict with that.

NNAMDIWell, there clearly is a lot of conflict, but the protests, according to many, may be the beginning of a new era. Andrew Kutchins, our caller Jennifer compares Putin's rule to that of a czar's.

KUCHINSWell, I think there's certain continuity in the tradition of centralization of power, the linking together of political power with economic power, which one finds in the Soviet period as well as the Czarist period. But the ironic thing about Vladimir Putin is that for most of the time that he's been in power he's been popular with the Russian people. And I don't think that most of that is manufactured. And I think a lot of it is a result of the fact that he was leading Russia during the period of economic recovery and increasing prosperity for most Russians.

KUCHINSAnd the question in my mind and those of -- and in the minds of many was, you know, why did he feel compelled that you had to, you know, control to such an extent and use various means to reduce the capacity of opposition figures and political parties to be effective?

KUCHINSBut the -- what we see right now, I think, is that suddenly the -- the ones -- I think the Russian -- many Russians are simply not happy with the way Mr. Putin announced that he was going to be returning to the presidency. There was an air of arrogance about it and that he could do virtually anything with impunity. And, you know, whether this was -- there was, you know, some demonstration effect of the Arab awakening that we saw in the past year and had an impact on the Russians, it's hard to say what was the catalyst. I think it was unexpected. But there is no way that I think he can continue to rule the way that he has.

NNAMDIJennifer, thank you very much for your call. And finally, Andrew Kuchins, there's this. You mentioned prosperity, you mentioned the population wealthy and well educated. Looking at this from a global perspective, a recent column in The Daily Beast said, "Putin's Russia is on its way to global irrelevance with a shrinking economy, less bargaining power in the world's oil and natural gas markets and the cultural life deformed by decades of Communist rule. What say you?

KUCHINSWell, I would say that, you know, Russia probably hit its major low point in international power and influence at the end of the 1990s. At that point, its GDP was only about 2 or 3 percent of the U.S. GDP. It experienced a decade of unheralded prosperity up until the financial crisis of 2008. A lot of it was due, of course, to the great increase in the oil price and other commodities, but the economic growth has been significant.

KUCHINSHaving said that, you know, Russia also faces many other problems. The demographic decline is very striking and the other indicators like where Russia ranks on corruption and rule of law and governance is way out of whack with the degree of wealth that it has. So I think it's a more mixed, it's a mixed picture.

NNAMDIAndrew Kuchins is senior fellow and director of the Russian and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He joined us by phone from Moscow. Andrew Kuchins, thank you so much for joining us.

KUCHINSMy pleasure, Kojo.

NNAMDIGoing to take a short break. When we come back, the future of non-profits, should they be flexing more political and economic model -- economic muscle? I'm Kojo Nnamdi.