Putin's phoney election

Dec 1st 2007 | MOSCOW AND TVER
From The Economist print edition

Behind Russia's sham parliamentary election this weekend

AFP

''MARIA'', a teacher in Tver, near Moscow, felt ashamed when she told her 15-year-old pupils to join a rally in support of President Vladimir Putin before the parliamentary election on Sunday December 2nd. The order came from the local administration, staffed by members of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party. ''I would not have lost my life or even my job if I had not followed the order. But I felt I could not refuse it, perhaps because I am not a free person. Ten years ago I would have told you my real name,'' she sighs. Her pupils later learnt from television that they had joined in an ''outburst of patriotic feeling''.

Similar ''voluntary'' demonstrations have been staged all over Russia. When the president decided to head United Russia's party list, its poll rating jumped from 50% to 63%. Yet Mr Putin is not even a member of United Russia. Most of the country will vote for their president, even though he is not up for election. Indeed, the exercise is not really an election at all. It is about confirming that power in Russia lies with Mr Putin, who has presided over an oil-driven bonanza for his country.

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Only candidates approved by the Kremlin are allowed to take part. Besides United Russia, which could secure 70% of the vote, these include the toothless Communist Party (which may get 12%) and the Liberal Democratic Party, a clownish far-right party set up in the late 1980s with the help of the KGB.

The results were fixed months ago, when the Kremlin changed the rules. To keep the opposition out of parliament, the Kremlin raised the threshold for seats to 7%, and banned small parties from forming coalitions to meet this requirement. The minimum turnout rule was abolished, as was the option to vote against all candidates. Regional parties and single-mandate seats that let in independent deputies were scrapped. Opposition leaders have been harassed or arrested and their financing blocked. Television has given blanket coverage to United Russia and dished dirt on all opposition.

Why have a people used to Soviet elections, when they had only one candidate, found the Kremlin's machinations so palatable? One reason is that Russian economic growth, sparked by the privatisations of the 1990s and kept going by the oil-price boom, has brought rising living standards and a new sense of stability. This, as well as his control of television, has made Mr Putin genuinely popular.

Most voters say the results will be rigged anyway. Worse, some 35% of Russians prefer the Soviet political system. Two-thirds of Russians consider the concentration of power in Mr Putin's hands to be a good thing. Most would like him to stay for a third term. Indeed, the only danger for the Kremlin is the possibility of an embarrassingly low voter turnout.

To guard against that, Mr Putin recently gave a rousing speech at a stadium in Moscow, broadcast on every television channel. He said Russia was in danger from ill-wishing foreigners and thieving liberals. The message is clear. Russia's enemies are the liberals who in the 1990s squandered its wealth, cut defence spending and led people into poverty.

They are now the candidates and sponsors of the opposition. The security services and police took Mr Putin's words as an instruction. When the opposition gathered in Moscow and St Petersburg as part of the Other Russia movement, which has not been allowed to register for this election, many people, including journalists, were beaten up and arrested. These scenes, broadcast around the world, were not shown on Russian television. Russians did not hear opposition speeches; they were not told that the police had unlawfully detained candidates.

The paradox is that the Kremlin would surely have won even had the election been free and fair. Its heavy-handed tactics betray the nervousness linked to the transition of power in any authoritarian system. A power struggle is clearly taking place within the Kremlin, as shown by the arrests of senior officials in different camps. Mr Putin needs to retain power after his second term expires next March, but at the same time to preserve legitimacy. It is not an easy task.

This is why the parliamentary election has been turned into a ceremony of approval for him. If Mr Putin cannot stay as president because the constitution bars him from a third consecutive term, he should take power with him wherever he goes.

Some Kremlin insiders think Mr Putin could make himself head of the powerful Security Council, whose functions may then be pumped up. Others suggest he could become prime minister, with extra powers, before returning to the Kremlin to replace the president, who could conveniently fall ill. The only problem of Mr Putin's system is that stepping aside even for a short time could be lethal for him and his cronies. And that is why Russia, despite the predictability of this election, feels like a country heading towards crisis.

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