#7
The Russia Journal
December 21-27, 2001
Russia’s elections still a farce
By DMITRY PINSKER
Elections without choice. Elections in which ordinary citizens participate only for form’s sake. Elections in which the outcome is known in advance because all the main players have made prior agreements on who gets what role in the campaign and who gets what share of the spoils afterwards.
Elections like these not only make a mockery of the democratic process, they also undermine the fundamental institution of political parties by reducing the political debates and battles for voters’ support to a series of behind-the-scenes deals.
Shortly before the Moscow City Duma elections, four large groupings that mistakenly call themselves parties – Unity (Yedinstvo), Fatherland (Otechestvo), Union of Right Forces (SPS) and Yabloko – signed an agreement and divided up 35 Moscow electoral districts between them. This is an example of blatant absurdity, and no amount of demagogic talk about the positive experience of a civilized fight and the optimization of effort can hide this fact.
Just whose interests are being optimized here – those of party officials? And what should a voter do if he traditionally votes for the right, and the leaders of his preferred party are asking him to give his vote to people at the other end of the political spectrum?
It was one thing for SPS and Yabloko to unite forces in single-seat districts in the last elections; they are ideologically close, after all, and if it weren’t for their leaders’ personal ambitions, would long since have formed a single coalition. But what do the right-wing liberals have in common with the "party of power," an association of conformist bureaucrats? Only unanimous support for President Vladimir Putin. But until now, Yabloko hadn’t shown any desire to form a coalition with Kremlin-friendly parties.
Two years ago, the right was ready to challenge Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and put up its own candidate – SPS’s Sergei Kiriyenko – against him in elections. But Luzhkov at that time actively opposed the Kremlin, and Kiriyenko’s participation in the election was part of a broad anti-Luzhkov campaign. SPS was backed in its bid by the Presidential Administration, while Boris Berezovsky drew up and financed the attack plan.
But now Luzhkov has become a partner if not a friend, and quarreling with him means running into conflict with at least part of the Kremlin team. By making peace, on the other hand, the right wins a few image points and gets access to Moscow’s impressive financial resources. With such a prize at hand, there’s no point worrying about trifles such as the fact that the candidates on the combined list were supplied by Luzhkov from among deputies in the previous Duma he knows to be personally loyal to him. Once everything was divided up and the roles had been distributed, the election campaign could begin.
"Now the time has come to ask the opinion of the people, so as to elect a truly worthy candidate." This phrase came last week from Yakutia Interior Minister Semyon Nazarov and was spoken in reference to elections in Yakutia. Nazarov’s phrase aptly captures all that has been going on in Moscow and Yakutia with the deals done and candidates dropping out of the race. Indeed, it sums up all the regional election campaigns of the last year.
What would we do without people like Nazarov? It is just such provincial officials, when they start thinking aloud, who often capture the real essence of what the authorities are up to.
In a situation like this, the only hope is that voters turn out to be less stupid and naive than the spin doctors expect. After almost 15 years of electoral democracy, voters have learned to put their finger on the authorities’ real intentions. What’s more, a number of election campaigns last year showed that voters don’t want to be seen as a mindless herd or be relegated to the role of extras. They either take their places in the "spectators’ gallery" in front of their TV sets, "vote with their feet" and simply don’t show up at the polling booths, or vote against all candidates.
The first case of voters ignoring elections this year was in Tula, and then in Nizhny Novgorod, where an amazingly low voter turnout enabled Communist candidate Gennady Khodyrev to become governor. Finally, voters made a poor showing in Moscow and in the Moscow Oblast last weekend in elections for the city and oblast Dumas. Both in Moscow and the oblast, voter turnout was between 26-29 percent, and in many districts made a suspicious-looking jump to get over the 25-percent mark at the last moment (voter turnout of under 25 percent invalidates the election).
Voters in Primorye last spring took the protest-vote approach. Angered by the federal authorities’ arbitrary removal of former Vladivostok Mayor Viktor Cherepkov from the race for governor, the electorate voted against all candidates on the list. In the end, this virtual candidate came in a close second to eventual winner Sergei Darkin.
Regional elections in Yakutia on Sunday are likely to follow one of the above scenarios. Even in as remote a place as Yakutia, usually calm and apolitical voters are no doubt sick of the mudslinging wars, revelations of "black PR," Kremlin tussles with regional leaders, endless court hearings and, finally, having all the leading candidates quit the race, while Alrosa head Vyacheslav Shtyrov was reinstated as a candidate and proclaimed current President Mikhail Nikolayev’s successor.
Practice shows that in such circumstances, even the most politically active voters end up losing all will to go vote at the appointed time and place. And that’s not to speak of the passive majority, who feel nauseous at the very mention of elections. This group is convinced that they will be cheated and that the authorities will " do what they think necessary." In this case, anyway, it looks as though they’re not far from the truth.
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