Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

Elections to Russia's State Duma will take place on December 4th.  Ria Novosti reports today that all of the registered parties will contest the poll  and points out that this is the first time that has happened since 1993.  The Russian ministry of justice provides a list of the contenders. It includes Pravoye Delo, or Right Cause, the free market friendly group, whose newly appointed leader, Mikhail Prokhorov, was recently ousted.  Other contenders Zyuganov's perennial challengers, the KPR (Russian communists), and another veteran's grouping, the LDPR, led by nationalist rabble-rouser Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Pollsters were suggesting that United Russia, whose list will be topped by the outgoing President, Dmitry Medvedev, might struggle to retain the 2/3rds majority which it needs to change constitutional law.  Levada's latest suggestion is that voter apathy might help the party to maintain its dominance.   

Last Saturday a lengthy political saga  finally came to an end at United Russia’s conference in Moscow.  Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin announced that the latter will contest next year’s Russian Presidential election.  This resolves the “will he or won’t he” speculation about President Medvedev seeking a second term in office. There will, of course, be many Russian liberals who see this decision as a fatal blow to Russia’s democracy.  There will also be a chorus of “we told you so”s from commentators hostile to the Kremlin who always maintained that Medvedev’s presidency was a sham.   Their arguments have some force, but they’re very far from the full picture.   The President has defended his decision to step aside and let Putin contest the election, observing that the Prime Minister is Russia’s “most authoritative” leader.   The Russian public has consistently expressed its preference for Putin, ahead of Medvedev, wher...

Dmitry Medvedev looks set to be the next President of the Russian Federation. Whether he acquires real power or whether Vladimir Putin, who will give United Russia's chosen candidate his backing, retains the bulk of influence will become clear in the months after the March election. Putin’s murmurings about alleviating election fatigue have been interpreted in a sinister fashion by some commentators . The suggestion is that Russia is embarking on a course whereby managed elections could become effectively no elections at all. The difficulty with this argument lies not necessarily with the assertion that Putin is becoming increasingly tyrannical but rather with the conception of Russia between 1991 and 2000 being on a meaningful road to liberal democracy. This view posits a tradition of authoritarianism linking Putin to the Soviet regime, interrupted by movement toward a democratic path under Boris Yeltsin. More subtle commentators may acknowledge a much earlier psychological a...

With ominous predictability early reports suggest that United Russia have polled around 63% of the vote in yesterday’s Duma election. When eliminated parties votes are redistributed it is possible that the party will command a 2/3 constitutional majority in Russia’s parliament. The outcome of this closely managed election reinforces the dominance of the pro-Kremlin party. In 2003 they managed 37.6 % of the vote. The result will also furnish Putin with the “moral authority” he sought to pursue the continuation of his policies into the tenure of a new presidency. United Russia insists that the constitution will not be changed in order to allow Putin to seek a third term. Political parties must name a presidential election candidate by 23rd December. The exact nature of Putin’s intention to remain as “national leader” may become clearer after United Russia convene to select their chosen candidate on 17th December. Putin retains the option to lead United Russia in the Duma and to b...

Russia goes to the polls on Sunday in order to elect 450 deputies to sit in its parliament, the Duma, for the next four years. The ballot is taking place amidst increasing accusations of unfair electioneering and vote rigging. The chances of anything resembling a free and fair election diminished substantially from the moment it became clear that the poll would be considered a referendum on Vladimir Putin’s status as “National Leader”. Although the President enjoys popular support in Russia, his presence heading the United Russia list, is not alone sufficient to ensure that the party achieve the 60% plus mandate which Putin feels is needed. Turning a parliamentary election into a personal approval poll itself undermines the worth of that institution, but a number of strategies have been employed to ensure that the Duma will not comprise any meaningful opposition to Putin or United Russia. Electoral reform designed to stifle independent candidates and small parties had already been ...

President Putin has delivered telling criticism of United Russia , the party whose list he heads for the 2 December Duma elections. "The party has no stable political ideology or principles for which the overwhelming majority of members are ready to fight. ... And, as a rule, being close to those in power, as United Russia is, all kind of crooks try to latch on to it, often with success" The irony of Putin’s comments is that United Russia’s policy can be summated as slavish deferral to the Kremlin and Putin himself. The lack of political ideology and principles merely illustrates the relative lack of importance of Russia's parliament and the party system to the Federation’s governance. Putin views the upcoming election as a referendum on the continuance of his personal power. Heading United Russia's list is fairly transparently, merely a vehicle by which to achieve this aim. "If the people vote for United Russia, whose list I lead, it means that they trust m...