Russian Democracy

[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.