Russia Profile
March 7, 2008
Russia Profile Weekly Experts Panel:
Russian Presidential Election – Affirming Democracy or Confirming Autocracy?
Introduced by Vladimir Frolov
Contributors: Stephen Blank, Ethan Burger, Eugene Kolesnikov, Andrei Liakhov, Nicolai Petro, Vlad Sobell, Andrei Tsygankov
Russia’s presidential election is over, and president Putin’s successor Dmitry Medvedev won the overwhelming majority of the popular vote, giving him a victory in the first round of voting.
The result was expected. All polls before the election showed Medvedev coasting to an easy win over his three rivals, two of whom – the Communist Party’s Gennady Zyuganov and Vladimir Zhironovsky of the Liberal Democratic Party – ran for President unsuccessfully several times before. The third, the Democratic Party’s Andrei Bogdanov, did not even fully know why he was running.
The seemingly uncontested nature of the election – all serious players like Sergei Ivanov or Vladimir Yakunin wisely chose to stay out of the race after Putin endorsed Medvedev’s candidacy, while opposition candidates like Michail Kasyanov or Boris Nemtsov either bowed out of the race early or failed to clear the registration requirements – provided grounds for Western criticism that the election was undemocratic and its predetermined outcome not reflective of the popular will of the Russian people and, thus, illegitimate.
As Clifford Gaddy and Andrew Kuchins write in their article in the latest issue of Washington Quarterly, “In the eyes of most of the outside world, at least those of Europe and the United States, the Russian electoral process has failed to measure up to benchmarks of democracy and free choice of policies and personalities. Rather, this process has been about legitimizing the notion of entrusting the country’s future to something called “Putin’s Plan,” thus ensuring preemstvennost’ politiki (continuity of policy) beyond the scheduled end of Putin’s term of office in May 2008.”
Western commentary predictably has focused on the lack of public debate among the candidates, alleged harassment of the opposition, voter intimidation by employers and local officials, and the overwhelmingly dominant coverage in the media of Medvedev. Much has been made of the OSCE decision not to send its election monitors to Russia, citing Russian authorities restricting their freedom of action in the country and a short observation period.
But does the boring and predictable nature of the election make its outcome inherently undemocratic and illegitimate?
In his latest analysis, Vlad Sobell of the Daiwa Institute of Research argues that it does not.
“The purpose of elections is the formation of effective and legitimate government, not public entertainment,” Sobell writes. “The regime has successfully entrenched stability, continuity and its democratic legitimacy in the face of difficult tasks ahead. Russia’s modernization is only in its early phase. It should also not be missed that this is the first instance in Russia’s history of a peaceful change of leadership in accordance with the law.”
So is the glass of the Russian democratic election half full or half empty? Is Medvedev a democratically elected third President of Russia? Is his victory reflective of the popular will of the Russian people or is it an outcome that lacks popular legitimacy by being a product of manipulative Kremlin policies? What does this election mean for the future of Russian political process? Is it an affirmation of evolving democracy or is it a confirmation of strengthening autocracy? How will the West treat Medvedev after the election? How will Medvedev govern alongside a more popular prime minister Putin?
Professor Nicolai N. Petro, Department of Political Science, Washburn Hall, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI:
It is important to distinguish between the electoral process, the electoral campaign, and the electoral outcome. Those who fail to do so seek to disparage the choice of the Russian people, rather than to understand it.
Few observers have challenged the election process itself, which was marred by glitches of the kind one routinely encounters in national elections. Instead, most of the criticism has been leveled at the electoral campaign, and while there is always room for improvement, they lack certain credibility since the same criticisms could just as easily be leveled at any European country.
For example, all countries regulate the participation of political groups by applying filters to their ability to participate in the elections process. Some, like the United States, apply these filters at the local level, through a complex set of fifty different state electoral standards. Typically, states require somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of the voters from the previous elections to register a party in the next ballot. This has reduced the people’s options to two.
Others, like Germany, set up their barriers at the other end of the process, namely 5 percent for the entrance of parties into parliament. Sometimes, as in the case of Italy, barriers as high as 10 percent are set for coalitions to enter parliament.
In any event, a direct comparison of the requirements for registering a political party quickly reveals that the current Russian laws in this area are among the most liberal in the Western world. Experimentally in this electoral cycle, the barrier for entry into the national parliament was set at 7 percent. While this is relatively high by European standards, it had no impact on the outcome, since the parties that did not make it into parliament all received far less than 7 percent of the vote.
Complaints were raised about Medvedev's dominant coverage in the news media, but again, this is hardly unique. As in most countries, Russia's electoral laws try to weave a balance between equal media access and restrictions on freedom of expression. Thus, all parties and their presidential candidates received 42 hours of free media air time during the one-month campaign period. They had the option to supplement this with up to $17 million of their own funds.
But, as the American elections have repeatedly shown, it is impossible to create an entirely level playing field, particularly when there are candidates who hold active government office. One either winds up ignoring legitimate news about the government’s activities because it would report more about one candidate's activities, or one has to provoke some sort of "response" from the other side.
This latter is often preferred in the United States, though it has the drawback of creating a somewhat artificial political spectacle. Moreover, it is only manageable because the mainstream media in the United States limits its coverage to two political parties, effectively removing "marginal" parties and candidates (Ron Paul, for example) from our political consciousness.
Russian electoral law does not allow public media entities to do that. Consequently, as the number of parties registered for an election expands, the issue of fairness and balance will multiply exponentially.
This leaves the most serious complaint against the Russian elections: their outcome. In the opinion of many Western observers, the Russian people simply made the wrong choice by voting in favor of a continuation of the present political course.
The fact that this is self-evidently an undemocratic stance points to a fundamental conflict of values between Russia and the West, and explains the diametrically opposed assessments each side gives to these elections.
Andrei Liakhov, Doctor of Law, Professor, London:
It is undeniable that President Putin and his policies had the overwhelming support of the electorate for the last 8 years. Any candidate whom he publicly supported would have won the job with a landslide majority. The opposition, which was fragmented and disorganised, managed to marginalize itself by promoting policies discredited by the gross failures of the 1990s and sticking to the leaders who, in the eyes of an average voter, caused those failures.
Unlike the monolithic "Putin Party," the opposition squabbled publicly and then failed to come up with a viable alternative leader. Instead, they focused on winning Western approval, rather than domestic support. This contributed significantly to the quality of the 2008 presidential campaign.
The opposition also failed to understand that the electorate is not the few "intelligentsia" who live inside Moscow’s center ring and along the ritzy Rublyovka Street. The rest are not concerned with abstract ideas of freedom, democracy and equality. Instead, they are focused on their own well-being and success. And that is precisely what the party of power has proven to be capable of delivering.
It is no surprise that what the West deems as "the democratic opposition" is a small group of vocal protesters on the margins of political society, with no real public support and no prospects of gaining Duma representation, let alone fielding a successful presidential candidate.
This was very clear to any objective observer for some time. It was also clear that neither the Communists nor LDPR have enough support to win the election on their own. Without throwing their weight behind a single candidate, these two could also be discarded. With this in mind, it was clear as early as spring 2006 that Putin’s candidate would win the election.
Thus the only real intrigue in the focus of every ideologically unbiased Russia watcher was who would win the party of power “primaries.” Unfortunately these primaries were conducted in the classical Soviet Politburo style, away from prying eyes of the public or the analysts. One could only guess how these "primaries" were developing with movements of people from office to office, by calculating television air time that each of the candidates received. On that basis, by spring last year the contest boiled down to two main candidates and it became clear by September that Medvedev was chosen by the committee of the elders.
In my view, this process did not make the elections undemocratic. The circumstances which lead to the result being easily predictable are, to a certain extent, unique, and not easily replicable in the future. It may also be argued that the presidential primary circus in the United States has relatively modest impact on the outcome of the party candidate nomination process. The process through which Britain selects a prime minister is much less overtly transparent than that of the U.S., but no one argues that English elections are less democratic.
The other widespread argument is that the Kremlin restricted the opposition's access to mass media. Anyone who watches Russian domestic television would argue otherwise – each of the candidates (other than Medvedev) appeared regularly on several talk shows broadcast in prime time on each of the national channels (Soloviev's "K Bariery" is the best example). The only obvious "limitation" was the news coverage, but it may be argued that the news covered Medvedev's work as the deputy prime minister, and certainly the news coverage of Medevedev itself did not look like an election campaign trailers or party political broadcasts.
To summarize, the Kremlin's media manipulations were clever, articulate and totally compliant with the existing election laws. These were very similar to the coverage the incumbent U.S. President is given in the election year. On the other hand, the public would have certainly benefitted from the primaries having been more open and transparent and that is what, in my view, the party of power should think about, particularly if it is serious about strengthening Russian democracy.
Eugene Kolesnikov, Private Consultant, the Netherlands:
Democracy is a governance system that legitimizes the rule of the elite through endorsement by the majority of the population via the mechanisms of non-coercive secret voting for competing political forces. Elites adjust the system through propaganda, modification of voting rules and by expanding or contracting access of political forces to the power competition with the aim to ensure stability or, conversely, to change the societal status quo.
By this definition the United States, Russia and Ukraine are democracies while China, with a one-party system, and Afghanistan, whose government does not have a majority support, are not. Any other opinion is inevitably loaded with a value or ideological judgment. For example in my value judgment Russian democracy is eminently superior to the Ukrainian democracy as the former achieves consolidation of the country while the latter is ripping the country apart. Both, nevertheless, remain democracies.
The non-ideological, non-patronizing, non-hypocritical pragmatic approach to democracy that is prevalent in Russia is quite different from the messianic notion of democracy espoused by the West. Transformation of the concept of democracy into an ideological and messianic discourse in the West has many causes and serves a number of purposes. One of the notable purposes is the use of it as a tool for achieving certain geopolitical ends.
Furthermore, this discourse on democracy (and liberalism) has become an all-pervasive ideology of the West – a quasi-religion with all the ensuing attributes. It has prophets, such as Jefferson, theologians, such as Tocqueville and Fukuyama, seminaries in the form of specialized departments at the universities, churches in the form of think tanks and NGOs, clergy represented by many thousands of people devoted to studying and preaching democracy, sermons delivered for example by George W. Bush in his speeches, holy edicts distributed by the media and vast masses of believers.
Consequently, disputes between advocates of non-ideological views on democracy and those who maintain a quasi-religious messianic belief in it are as futile as the disputes between Protestants and Catholics. The key issue here is not converting the other side but avoiding the wars of reformation.
This approach allows me to think that the Russian democracy glass is neither half-empty nor half-full. Rather, Russia is drinking from a different glass and only time will tell whose glass is fuller.
Vlad Sobell, Daiwa Institute of Research, London:
The West’s adamant refusal to acknowledge Putin’s Russia as an evolving democracy, while having no problems with numerous flawed Western-allied democracies, is a repetition of a story as old as humanity itself. A heretic embodying an alternative, but fresh and compelling interpretation of the faith, is more dangerous than an unbeliever. And excommunication, advocated by the likes of John McCain, is the only effective way to respond.
The bitterness is rooted in the heretic’s freedom and independence, which cannot but undermine the very foundations of the established order. The Putin regime’s audacious claim to the title of democracy could, if allowed to pass, seriously disorient the Western value system, or at least compel it to undergo an unsettling adaptation to the new situation.
For how could genuine democracy be born without close Western supervision? The painful, centuries-long evolution, which has given the world today’s Washington-led democratic camp, would be exposed as unfinished and incomplete. Narratives spun over centuries, culminating in the heroic struggle against the 20th century’s totalitarian empires and their creeds, would have to be rewritten, or altogether discarded. This might lead to mayhem.
Pondering this, one cannot help invoking Fyodor Dostoevsky’s timeless masterpiece, the parable of the Grand Inquisitor. There, Christ returning to earth is sent off packing by a high priest of the Christian faith and instructed never to return again, precisely because his presence would deal a blow to the order that had been established in his name. The elites would have to think again, and the narrative long embraced by the masses would have to be rewritten. The very soul of the “system” would be profoundly menaced.
However, our contemporary version of the story has its own twist. Since democracy (and open society which is supposed to thrive under it) should theoretically be capable of safely absorbing the challenge, the West’s refusal to engage in a civilized dialogue with Russia, and its insistence that it will only talk down to it as an undisputed master, points to the West’s fundamental moral malfunction. If the democratic camp, led by the U.S., cannot tolerate and safely enlist within its ranks a democratic heretic (without destroying him in the process), then it has lost its vitality.
Indeed, the corruption of Western culture is amply manifested in its hysterical and malevolent response to the rising Russia. Above all, it is evident in the persistent and widespread willful misrepresentation of plain facts. If a civilization with supposedly higher democratic credentials than Russia feels it needs to resort to systematic lies, then something is seriously wrong with it. Is democracy really compatible with such almost totalitarian-style phenomena?
Those who believe that I am exaggerating should consider the following. Why is it that Putin is invariably described as former KGB goon who wants to restore the Soviet Union when actually he has never made such claims? Why is Russia portrayed as a “resurgent” and “aggressive” power, when it merely reacts defensively to encirclement by NATO? Why was the Putin regime accused of waging a “cyber war” against Estonia, when the Estonian Internet security officials themselves have described such claims as nonsense? Why are Putin and his regime accused of being behind the killing of Alexander Litvinenko and Anna Politkovskaya, when there is no credible evidence to support these accusations? Why is Gazprom, and consequently the Kremlin, accused of “gas blackmail,” when it merely withholds supplies due to the non-payment of debts? Why is it considered an article of faith that Medvedev faced “no opposition” in the presidential elections, when in fact there were two experienced opposition candidates? Why was Kasyanov said to be banished from the race, when in fact he failed to comply with the rules? Why is the degree of “oppression” of “dissidents” constantly exaggerated and portrayed as if Russia still was the Soviet Union? Why is Russia deemed to have no independent media, when in fact it has a very thriving free press? (Regarding this point, I would argue that the limitations indirectly imposed by Putin are in some ways comparable to limitations in the Western countries). Why is Russia’s spectacular economic recovery constantly ridiculed as being the result of little else but high hydrocarbon prices? The list could go on and on.
As long as these phenomena persist, one cannot avoid concluding that it is the West, rather than Russia, that has to clean up its act before it can be considered a genuine democracy.
Andrei Tsygankov, Associate Professor of International Relations, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA:
Russia's political system is not perfect, but it is increasingly able to address important social challenges. Organizing a successful power transition and putting in charge a viable ruling elite is a major challenge, and Russia has successfully met it. Congratulations are in order. Just recall how many "experts" in mainstream Western newspapers have confidently predicted President Putin staying for the third term. Where are they with their predictions now?
The most important question is not whether Russia's power transition met some idiosyncratic expectations of Western observers, but whether it corresponds with broad public hopes at home and creates a well-functioning governing mechanism. The answer to the first question is a definitive yes. There is no question that the results of the vote reflect social expectations, and even if the vote was a referendum on Putin, as some have argued, referendums are a part of democracy.
The answer to the second question is more complicated because we simply don't know enough about Dmitry Medvedev and how a new division of power is going to work. It is possible that it will not work as well as many hope. But one thing seems clear. The power elite that is ruling Russia is now more consolidated than before, and fears of some sort of a split within siloviki or between them and other groups seem an even greater exaggeration now than a few years ago.
This is not to say that such split a is impossible, as Russia remains a weak state from a public administration standpoint. Yet it is less likely today simply because the elite seems to have worked out an important political and ideological consensus. By ruthlessly eliminating narrow political extremes, such as Kasyanov and Rogozin, the Kremlin has forged a liberal-conservative consensus that will guide Russia's modernization for the next five years or more.
In this consensus, Medvedev emerges as a prototypical liberal with a greater emphasis on developing civil society and rule of law. Putin is closer to a modern conservative with his concerns for preserving stability, governance and independence. The important thing is, however, that the two leaders are fiercely patriotic and agree on fundamental principles of reforming the economy and political system. Russian liberalism and conservatism are of course very different from their Western cousins but that is to be expected if Russia is to remain a power and a culture on its own.
Ethan S. Burger, Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law Center, & Scholar-in-Residence, School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C. :
It is appropriate that I prepare my comment before the results of the Russian Presidential Election's are final. The outcome has never been in doubt since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Dmitry Medvedev was to be his successor. At this stage, it appears that the Central Election Commission will announce that Medvedev will have received a sufficient number of votes to avoid a run-off.
This "legitimation process" has been organized to allow President Putin to continue to exercise power as the country's prime minister. Admittedly, of all the likely candidates considered by Putin, the Russian people could have done a lot worse – a fact for which the world should probably be thankful. Nonetheless, the use of governmental assets to ensure a favorable electoral result for Medvedev is most unfortunate for the Russian people (though it is a situation by no means unique to Russia, but it is not typical for a European country purporting to be a democracy).
The absence of a real contested election prevents a true discussion of the issues of the day. Medvedev would not debate those permitted to be his "opponents." This suggests that Putin and his inner circle has more to fear than fear itself. Polling and the activity of analytical centers cannot provide sufficient reliable guidance to the Russian leadership concerning the Russian electorate's priorities. This is most unfortunate.
In the coming years, the Russian leadership will have to make tough decisions concerning diversifying the economy, demographics/immigration, environmental protection, health care, inflation, improving relations with other countries, reducing corruption, etc. If there is indeed a global recession, the price of energy should decline. Russian corporations and banks will have difficulty getting financing from abroad. This should reduce the growth rate of the Russian economy and the standard of living of the Russian population.
The country's system for electing the State Duma (by raising the threshold to 7 percent for a party to be represented in that body, the prohibition of regional parties, etc.) and for the country's presidency as well as the ending of direct election of the heads of the subjects of the Russian Federation deprive the Russian government of a means to receive vital insight needed to allow it to properly govern the country. Perhaps, this is not a priority.
State control of television and the increased use of prosecution of individuals for political reasons (e.g. the parents of some of the children who died during the Beslan tragedy, ironically, an event triggered by an act of terrorism, as well as Lev Ponomarev, not exactly an individual that could be called either a threat to national security or an extremist), is depriving the Russian people of information that will be needed by the Russian leadership to develop policies that are supported by the population. In the long-term, governments can succeed only if they are accountable – in the absence of gradualism, there is the risk of raising expectations, which can become dangerous to the continuation of the system since the population may be unwilling to make needed sacrifices for the public good as they were excluded in the past from meaningful participation in the political process and kept in the dark as to the actual conditions in the country.
Professor Stephen Blank, the U.S. Army War College, Carlyle Barracks, PA:
Sobell and Frolov must have found some extraordinarily potent vodka or have an amazing sense of humor to make such assertions. There is nothing democratic about Medvedev's becoming president. Let me remind our readers that the verb “to elect,” from which the word election stems, means to choose and there was no choice here. Moreover, the opposition was intimidated, arrested, repressed or bribed, media were taken over, intimidated, or shut down, and this is happening with increasing frequency. All this betokens not only a regime that moves ever closer to centralized autocracy based on manufactured charisma and an official state ideology as well as repression. It also signifies a regime that is extraordinarily aware of its own illegitimacy and fragility so that it has to bring extraordinary pressure to bear to assure that its candidate pretends to win by a landslide. Prince Potemkin would be proud.
The whole charade of bringing Putin back as prime minister also indicates not the stability of the system but its weakness because its elites cannot conceive of any government other than one with Putin calling the shots. Neither did he apparently think Medvedev could manage against his rival who gave every indication of their desire to tear the regime apart to save their own hides and position.
If Putin truly thought Medvedev could rule alone, he would have completely retired from the scene and not become prime minister. Nor will this charade fool anyone. Governments will do business with Medvedev because they have to, but they will not trust him or his government.
The overwhelming mendacity, coerciveness and sheer contempt for the West betrayed in all the phases of this campaign strongly militate politically as well as ideologically against genuine cooperation which Russia needs. Russian mistrust of the West will be repaid in kind to everyone's disadvantage.
Thus this charade will fail in establishing Medvedev's and the Russian government's legitimacy, Sobell's analysis to the contrary. The flight into the future of trying to establish a dvoevlastie (dual power) to stabilize the tsarist system recreated by both Yeltsin and Putin is a measure of despair, not strength, and should not be read as a sign of stability or power but quite the opposite. Of course, as in any Potemkin village, the facade of self-confident strength and contempt for foreigners will be manifested everywhere but behind the fake palaces and villages, the reality will be quite different.