Russian Democracy

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Recent Election Results in Russia -- thoughts?

Comments from those more local -- our East of the Elbe crowd -- especially appreciated.

[Ice]

Recent Election Results in Russia -- thoughts?

What is this democracy you speak of?

[woad&fangs]

What is this democracy you speak of?

Angry Putin:24%
Corrupt Putin:52%
Assassin Putin:5%
Quarrelsome Putin:19%

[ICantSpellDawg]

Russian democracy is clearly dead

[Papewaio]

Not dead, its still quite reactive... radioactive that is.

[Charge]

[Vladimir]

You people are sad. The Cold War is over and Russia is our friend. This thread is nothing but an attempt by the US military industrial complex to...Oh I can't remember. Anyone have any good conspiracy theories along this line?

[HoreTore]

You people are sad. The Cold War is over and Russia is our friend. This thread is nothing but an attempt by the US military industrial complex to...Oh I can't remember. Anyone have any good conspiracy theories along this line?

Nah, we're too occupied thinking about Putin's dark side.

Oh, 'cept that Seamus is bought and paid for by CIA, of course. But he blew his cover a long, long time ago.

[Vladimir]

Oh, 'cept that Seamus is bought and paid for by CIA, of course. But he blew his cover a long, long time ago.

I KNEW it!


Can I have a job?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Oh, 'cept that Seamus is bought and paid for by CIA, of course. But he blew his cover a long, long time ago.

I categorically deny this. I am not an employee of any intelligence service. Move along here... nothing to see.

[cegorach]

Recent Election Results in Russia -- thoughts?

Comments from those more local -- our East of the Elbe crowd -- especially appreciated.

All right.

I have already discussed it in details in TWC (sorry - less trolls than here), but I can write few thoughts here.


Russian democracy - I would say it is not Belorus or China (yet), because opposition still exists and certain rules of law are not broken (although many of them are used against the spirit of the law).

It is important to remember that currently not a single opposition party is in the parliament.

United Russia might be seen as the real Kremlin powerhouse, but in reality not a single of the remaining three parties in Duma can be described as opposition.
All of them support Putin with the PR creation called Fair Russia even founded with the loudly spoken purpose of adding more support for Putin and Kremlin in general.



Because the rule of law technically still exists it is not a full dictatorship, yet in reality it is only for show.

Neither of the state structures is independent anymore, all are parts of Kremlin bandwagon - either directly or through state-owned and private companies.

At certain level and in certain areas it is actually very close to a mafia-like organisation.

Of course that could be said about the Soviet Union, but the difference is currently it is more behind the stage and less solid so more vulnerable to faction wars.

In many ways the biggest problem for the ruling factions is a safe transfer of power without all those exhausting conflicts seen in the 1990s and the very presence of Putin as the 'father of the nation' serves this purpose well.


Of course I am not trying to say that Mr.Putin is a puppet - he certainly lead the powerful Petersburg faction closely linked to some of the many ex-KGB infested structures.
Currently it seems he will become either a 'super-president', a 'super-oligarch' or someone with power strong enough to prevent from most dangerous (to the ruling elite) conflicts to happen.



What about opposition, freedom of press, human rights etc.

Well...

The opposition - for now it is a chaotic mixture of various groups without a single, respectable leader which has only one common purpose - is against Putin.
Many of those parties are hardly civilised from our point of view, some would be banned altogether in many fully democratic states, but that serves the Kremlin to put all opposition organisations in one basket.

On the other hand - really democratic opposition is simply too weak to deal with the Kremlin controlled structures and for now most likely have to stick to the barbaric allies they have now.


For now Kremlin doesn't need to do much to deal with the opposition - brutal actions are hardly necessary and those which happened or will happen are mostly because of paranoia and overzealus approach of certain people.
In addition Kremlin uses public persecution, courts of law, police and other state structures to disrupt activities of the opposition - not by arresting them for political activity, but for hooliganism, extremism, computer piracy, tax evasion, debts, garbage dumping. Also tax controlls, administrative orders and 'coincidental' problems happen a lot e.g. once oppositon gathering couldn't start because for some reason manure was disposed in the place they were supposed to meet.
In general it is all happening without breaking any regulations of any kind.

Freedom of press and speech.

Technically still exists - the authorities are criticised by a number of newspapers, radiostations and sometimes some tv channels + internet of course, but because the range of such media is limited to few millions. Kremlin is rather happy with the fact it really owns all media of larger influence and range - and that is pretty enough.
In addition because in theory parties like fair Russia are opposing United Russia criticism of various politicians happens from time to time, or more often - also some of them are sacked 'because' of this criticism - of course it really doesn't matter because those people act like scape goats and the whole 'political debate' about them is a show for the public opinion.

Human rights

Are violated, but most of the society doesn't care about these as long as their wages are good and on time, Russia 'remains strong' in its foreign policy and TV tells them how good everything ois and will get better.
In a way really serious problems do not concern most people and there is not really anyone who could inspire such interest.
NGOs and human right activists are shown as western agents (often literally - 'working for dollars and euros') and problems with HR in western countries are shown to build the message 'they are not better than us' just like with the favourite Soviet phrase 'and you are beating the black people'.


Overall.

Russia is stilla democracy if we will read law literally and use quasi-logical arguments just like those comparing Chechen wars to NATO in Afghanistan or Kosovo - which look pretty fine to somone with basic knowledge about the subject, but very far from real in reality.

The reality is much different - it is a farce, a show, a theater or a circus where Kremlin writes the scripts and most of the audience doesn't really care.

The (remaining) good sides are that:

- constitution and law is in general not violated when it comes to the letter of the law,
- opposition can exist,
- areas of freedom of speech still exist too,
- extreme nationalism is not allowed to prosper beyond certain levels,


The entire rest is something to worry about, especially the fact that the authorities feed extreme nationalism when it suits them, official ideology is full of (moderate) nationalistic propaganda - so not patriotic and racism is already present in the law and most likely that will be something to worry about
more than anything else.

Hoping for the best I can assume that richer middle class (which is being formed) will grow up over consumption and start fighting for more, preparing for the worst I am afraid Kremlin will deal with that for decades and that Russia itself will gradually become more nationalistic and racist - so more and more dangerous.

According to long-term studies I have read the second is more probable.


I hope someone will find those thoughts interesting.


Regards Cegorach

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Good detailed post, thank you. Do you have some source cites for me to bone up further? I am regrettably, only fluent in English; but I can usually get the gist of material in French, German, Italian, or Spanish if I must -- but Cyrillics defeat me .

[rvg]

...The reality is much different - it is a farce, a show, a theater or a circus where Kremlin writes the scripts and most of the audience doesn't really care...

Yup, and that is Putin's genius, he realised that totally destroying opposition is counterproductive: it make you look bad and takes too much effort. Instead it is far better to merely marginalize the opposition to the point where their impact is virtually nil.

[cegorach]

Yup, and that is Putin's genius, he realised that totally destroying opposition is counterproductive: it make you look bad and takes too much effort. Instead it is far better to merely marginalize the opposition to the point where their impact is virtually nil.

Actually it is even more cunning - after all there are four parties in Duma now and ALL in fact are backed or controlled by Kremlin.
Of course they are rivaling and criticising each other, but in questions of little importance to the general situation and so that it cannot affect the Kremlin controlled political scene in any way.
All 'represent' certain ideas or actually are supposed 'speak for' some people - Fair Russia was created only to undermine the communists and attract votes of people with left-wing ideas, but not too radical ones and unwilling to support United Russia. Communists and nationalists have their purpose too - in a way these both attract radical voters and scare more rational ones pushing them to vote for United Russia or Fair Russia.
It is like a perfect political environment - each party with their support groups, each plays its own part and they all ritually fight for the voters.

One, big show for the public.

Now add to that the fact that Russia has one of the best PR specialists (spin-doctors) - usually dealing with 'black PR' - who can safely exploit tactics which are impossible or very difficult to use in normal democratic states.

For example one of exceptionally successful tactics is to 'create' a fake candidate to elections. The guy preaches certain slogans which are very much alike like those of an opposition candidate. Such a candidate is not supposed to win anything, he is only to take some votes from an opposition leader and that is all.
The 'technical' (as they are called by some) candidates are usually 'produced' for more important election - for a president, in local elections for a mayor of a large city etc.
In the previous presidential elections there were at least 4 of them (those I can remember at least).

This invention was used in countires where Russian spindoctors are employed or where RF is sen as 'model democracy' to some people or parties - so the fake candidates were present in elections in Ukraine and Belorus. In fact in Belorus because of a number of 'fakes' even one real independent candidate (now in prison) who managed to humilate Lukashenko was seen by some as a Russian 'technical' candidate employed by Lukashenko himself to take distract the real opposition...

In Ukraine it was used as well, but with little success - the 'wonder weapon' didn't really work there.


So next time - in 2008 we can only speculate who will really be contesting in the presidential elections and who will be a puppet (of Putin ) or a fake ...
Yes, Russia is a mystery hidden in enigma...


@Seamus Fermanagh

Good detailed post, thank you. Do you have some source cites for me to bone up further? I am regrettably, only fluent in English; but I can usually get the gist of material in French, German, Italian, or Spanish if I must -- but Cyrillics defeat me

I am interested in eastern affairs for 15 years, at least... so it is based on dozens of sources - most of those I cannot even recall at the moment - many of those are in Polish anyway which will not help you either.

But at least I can do one thing - Polish think-tank dealing with this subject Osrodek Studiów Wschodnich (Centre for Eastern Studies) provides interesting sources on regilar basis...

http://osw.waw.pl/en/eindex.htm

Its English section might be quite useful, I believe.

[Vladimir]

All right.

I have already discussed it in details in TWC (sorry - less trolls than here), but I can write few thoughts here.

It's fewer you non English speaking...

Just kidding. Two great and insightful posts. Your analysis is deeper than that of a lot of "professionals" I know. I wish I could read more about the strategies you claim he employs.