Elections in Russia

Another Successor

Although the number 70% sounds impressive it's 49% of all the registered voters and 37% of all the Russian population. It's not even majority in all senses. But Kremlin propagandists try to turn it that "Whole Russia is supporting Medvedev and Putin's plan". It is not. However, if we look at it from the historical point of view, Medvedev is (according to the numbers) the most popular president in Russia since 1991. Is this really so?


By ALEXEY SIDORENKO
from Moscow, RUSSIA


Fifth Russian presidential election just passed. Dmitri Anatolievich Medvedev, first Vice Prime-Minister, was elected third president of Russia with the support of 70.28% of the voters who came to vote (52.4 million people or 49% of all registered voters). Who were his competitors? What does this situation means? What lead to the election of Medvedev - in public politics and in hideous Kremlin games of Russian elite clans? It's known that Putin is not leaving politics - what will be the scenario of their cooperation? Will it be successful? And by the way, who is Mr.Medvedev? This article will try to answer all these uneasy questions.

The electoral campaign can't be called either fair or free. These are not just my words. Andreas Gross, from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) stated them first. What was the reason of such statement?

First of all we need to mention the procedure of nominating the candidates. Presidential candidates can be either nominated by the parties who entered the parliament (there were only four of them to go through 7% barrier in 2007) or they need to collect 2 mln of signatures. Two parliamentary parties nominated Mr.Medvedev (United Russia, Just Russia plus two non-parliament parties: Civil Force and Rural Party). Gennadiy Zyuganov Russian communist leader was nominated by the Communist Party of Russia and Vladimir Zhirinovsky was nominated by Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. There were two candidates who tried to collect signatures - Andrey Bogdanov and Mikhail Kasyanov. One succeeded, one - failed. Reason of such difference in results - one candidate represented real opposition (Kasyanov) the other was loyalist quasi-democratic candidate-spoiler (Bogdanov).

For the second time since 2007 OSCE observers boycotted Russian elections. Central Electoral Commission offered them only 70 invitations. However, OSCE's methodology requires the number of observers not limited by government. First OSCE send evaluation group, find out how much observers they need and then send as many observers as they require. For example, countries with long history of democratic elections like Belgium or US receive small number of OSCE observers (13 in Belgium and 20 in US). Russian Government insisted on the number of 70. OSCE refused due to inability of making any credible conclusions with such small number of people in such a big country with a short democratic history and a long authoritarian one.

Changing hats: Vice Prime-Minister and the Candidate

During presidential run in January-February 2008 Medvedev visited about 20 russian regions. Most of them he visited as the Vice Prime-Minister. He went to Altai krai to speak with agriculture workers, in Saint Petersburg he promised 2 billions of rubles to the veterans, in Novosibirsk he visited forum "Mothers of Siberia" where he told his plans about increasing social insurance of mothers. The list of his "official visits" is long. And only in Nizhny Novgorod he took day off "to meet the electorate". He brilliantly changed his hats: one hat - of the Candidate, the other - Prime-Minister. Unfortunately, there's no law in Russia who would regulate such evident conflict of interests.

The list of arguments why this campaign was not fair can be prolonged. It can include controlled media showing Medvedev in any news program. Or administrative pressure, when directors of the factories and other enterprises were forcing their workers to attend elections and to vote for "you-know-who". Not to forget direct falsifications when independent observers were witnessing illegal inputs of hundreds of bulletins signed for Medvedev. Medvedev could probably win without all these things that undermine his legibility. He could get less but definitely he would be the most probable winner. But the point is that Putin's governmental machine in Russia 2007 was so "overmanaged" that the officials on every level were making everything to set these elections go like this. It was a competition of administrative resource not public elections. Bureaucracy was so interested in continue of the Putin's pro-bureaucratic politics that they didn't even want a single risc appear on the way of transfer of power.

Who is Mr. Medvedev?

Rephrasing the original question about Putin, let's ask ourselves where does Medvedev comes from? Medvedev was born in 1965 in Leningrad (now St.Petersburg), in 1982 entered law department of the Leningrad University. In 1990 he defended his Phd. In 1991 he helped Anatoliy Sobchak to become St.Petersburg mayor. There he got acquainted with Vladimir Putin. Till 1996 he was lawyer in Committee of the Foreign Connections of Saint-Peterburg (head of the Committee Vladimir Putin). After loss of Sobchak on the next mayor elections in 1996 he left the public office and went to business. In 1999 he was invited to the Government (it was connected with the career rise of Putin). Then in 2000 became the first deputy of head of the President's Staff. In 2003 after the Yukos case became the Head of the President's Staff where he was until 2005. In 2005 he was transferred to the Government as the first Vice Prime-Minister. In March 2008 Medvedev was elected to the President's of Office. Good career ladder, isn't it?

Who were the Medvedev's competitors? Let's analyze their programs. The most powerful candidate Gennadiy Zyuganov, who took 13 million of votes (17.7%) was nominated by the communist party. His program included seven points: 1) Nationalization, 2) Dismissal of all recent social laws, stimulating fertility rate 3) Modernization of economics, 4) Transformation of political system and guarantee of civil rights and political freedoms (like in USSR, huh?), 5) Restoration of the death penalty and the reestablishment of the Union of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and "possibly Kazakhstan", 6) Return to the soviet system of education, dismissal of Bolognia convention, ban of commercials on national TV channels, 7) As a final - new Constitution.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky (9.35%, 5.3 mln) offered his voters to make Wednesday a day-off with the decreasing of a working day to 7 hours. Among his priorities were: 1) territorial reform, dismissal of all the national republics inside Russia, 2) Dismissal of all the governors and mayors as an institution, 3) reformation of the police. "Foreign policy should be neutral with the ability and a moral right of Russia to invade countries that are in our sphere of control". Andrey Bogdanov (1.3%, 0.97 mln) agitated for the deeper ties with European Union.

Medvedev as the President - what does it means?

Although the number 70% sounds impressive it's 49% of all the registered voters and 37% of all the Russian population. It's not even majority in all senses. But Kremlin propagandists try to turn it that "Whole Russia is supporting Medvedev and Putin's plan". It is not. However, if we look at it from the historical point of view, Medvedev is (according to the numbers) the most popular president in Russia since 1991. E.g. Eltsyn at the peak of his popularity took 45 million of votes, Putin took 39.7 million of votes in 2000. Isn't this popularity? According to the absolute numbers Medvedev's reign will be more legitimate than Putin's. Is this really so?

I guess not. Both Putin and Medvedev realize, that everything Medvedev has - is Putin's legacy. Like a babychild Medvedev was brought up on the hands of Putin and he owes Putin his current position. Medvedev also knows that he was not the only possible candidate. Among possible candidates were Sergey Ivanov (also first Prime-Minister and before that Ministry of Defence), not public candidates like Sergey Chemezov (Head of governmental arms exporting corporation Rosoboronexport), Vladimir Yakunin (Head of Russian Railroads). Latter two are very good personal friends with Putin. Putin even could alter Constitution and stay for the third term like many of his Central Asian colleagues-presidents did (Like Turkmenistan dictator Saparmurat Niyazov or Uzbekistan autocrat Islam Karimov). Medvedev - is a product of Putin's plan. But how the plan will work - that's still a question.

Working with Putin

Putin stated that he will remain in politics as the Prime-minister. The plan is that they will work with Medvedev in a happy cooperation for the next four years. After that Putin might want to run for the president once again. But what will happen if the business will go bad? If the oil prices will go down, Europe will find some new way of importing gas and so on? In Russia everybody loves president but no one loves Prime Minister. The PM has to do routine "dirty work" like unpopular reforms and so on. Putin proved himself as hard-handed politic but will he be hard enough to take this new challenge? After all Medvedev has a legal right to fire Prime Minister.

Putin is aware of that. That's why during 2007 he was appointing people on the highest positions in the government and in Duma (not appointing, let's say but "recommending") that are personally tied with Putin. In case of conflict between Medvedev and Putin it will be hard to fire Prime-Minister considering at any moment he might become leader of the dominant party United Russia.

According to my forecast the plan of happy cooperation might last for the next 2-3 years. After that Medvedev will be tempted by influential interest groups that might not be happy with Putin's politics. And this situation might contain risks both for Russia as well as the rest of the world.


(Published: 09.03.2008.)

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