Russia Profile
February 7, 2008
The 100 Percent Guarantee
Why the Kremlin has to Keep Kasyanov and the OSCE at Bay
Comment by Georgy Bovt
Georgy Bovt is a Moscow-based political analyst.
Many Western observers are sincerely perplexed as to why the Russian authorities need to so strictly “filter” the presidential candidates if the result of the election – the crushing victory of President Vladimir Putin’s appointed successor Dmitry Medvedev – has practically been predetermined already. They notice how strict the Central Election Commission (CEC) was about checking the signatures submitted in support of the only “non-system” oppositional candidate, Mikhail Kasyanov. In the end, the CEC had no difficulty proving a fact that everyone knew already: it is practically impossible to collect over 2 million signatures in a little over two weeks doing everything according to the letter of the law. The case with Kasyanov, it seems, could be interpreted in any possible way: the members of the Central Election Commission themselves said that the main issue with his signature lists was not that the signatures were fake, but that the lists were composed wrong. Therefore, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that Kasyanov could have been registered if any goodwill had been shown toward him. He would have won his “legitimate” 2 or even a “whole” 5 percent of votes, which does not seem to be dangerous for the regime from any point of view. However, no goodwill was shown Kasyanov and he was not registered.
When dealing with observers from the OSCE, the same “adherence to principals” was demonstrated by the CEC from the very start. In 2004, the OSCE had no problems sending their observers to the Russian presidential election. No one limited their numbers or the length of their stay. At that time, OSCE observers came to Russia about a month before the election, and in the end they wrote a rather benevolent report that, in particular, recommended that Russia remove the “against all” item from the election ballots. When the Duma added this recommendation to the list of amendments to the election laws, many representatives of the Russian government actually took pride in saying that Russia was following the suggestions of international organizations.
This time, however, problems arose from the very start. They began with the Duma elections in December, when, as a result of squabbles between the CEC and representatives of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the group simply ignored the elections.
During the stage of preparation for the presidential election, the two sides continued to exchange mutual reproaches and accusations. The Russian authorities accused the “controllers” of “political blackmail;” the latter replied that Russia does not want to hold a fair election and is hiding something. Meanwhile, many people feel that this conflict is absolutely empty: any number of observers can be allowed to be present during the upcoming Russian election – if only for the simple reason that no special extraordinary effort is needed to guarantee the victory of the Kremlin candidate; even more so, no manipulations of vote-counting will be necessary since they were not necessary for the victory of United Russia in December.
There is one similarity between the treatment of the OSCE observers and Kasyanov’s ban: these actions are seen by many people as absolutely excessive and unreasonably harsh in the specific conditions of the current election campaign, which is extremely boring and predictable, given that the outcome of is already known to everyone.
I personally can only partially agree with these arguments, because there is also another side to this story – the arguments of the current Russian regime. And from their point of view, the participation of Kasyanov, for example, in this election is rather dangerous. Just as there is danger in any political actions meant to influence the electorate – which does not have any clear political views and is prone to emotional decision-making.
The Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) recently conducted a curious survey. In determining the level of electoral support for Dmitry Medvedev, the foundation discovered that more than 50 percent of voters are willing to vote for him right now. This support, however, fell to a fantastically low 9 percent as soon as the hypothetical question: “And what if Putin was also running in this election?” was raised. According to other surveys, more than 70 percent of the population would have preferred Medvedev to participate in the public election debates on television. He did not choose to participate, however. At the same time, almost 70 percent of the population confessed to not having a clear notion of Medvedev’s views, his platform or his views on foreign policy, although they find him very likeable as a person. These numbers alone show that there are no firm passions or principles among the likely Russian voters – there are only emotions, inspired by a carefully staged television image. As soon as you allow any “unapproved,” sudden influence on these people, the Kremlin political strategists will no longer be able to control the consequences. This is why they feel it best to minimize any surprises.
Now, a completely different question is how much longer they’ll be able to avoid such surprises in Russia’s political and social life, and what will happen when the surprises can no longer be avoided?