Rigging the future of Russia shades of the KGB that never goes away
iamnothere
2011/11/17 15:05:01
Rising unease over Putin’s return
By Neil Buckley in Moscow
Russia’s parliamentary elections on December 4 and presidential poll next March are often dismissed as processes whose outcomes are pre-ordained. But the Kremlin may find it more difficult to control the results than it once did.
The mood in Russia has changed since the last electoral cycle four years ago. Back then, the economy was still growing at 7 per cent a year, the global financial crisis a distant cloud. Moscow’s leadership brimmed with confidence.
Most Russians would have been happy to see then president Vladimir Putin remove a constitutional limit of two consecutive presidential terms and stay on. Instead, he installed Dmitry Medvedev as placeholder president and moved to the prime minister’s chair – respecting the letter, if not spirit, of the constitution.
Now Mr Putin is coming back for a third presidential term, Russia’s intellectual and business elites, at least, are no longer sure this is a good thing. Debates at last week’s annual Valdai Discussion Club, a Putin initiative dating from 2004 that brings together top foreign and domestic specialists on Russia, revealed deep unease.
Emboldened, perhaps, by the off-the-record format, many Russian participants – including those who once broadly backed Mr Putin – openly questioned whether today’s ossified political system could deliver the modernisation Russia needs.
Timothy Colton, a Harvard professor who summarised the group’s findings to Mr Putin at a dinner on Friday, suggested that most agreed on one thing: “The present model of government, which took shape in Russia in the last 10 or 12 years, appears to have exhausted its potential.”
A report prepared mostly by Russian experts as the basis for the Valdai discussions gave an even starker assessment.
Today’s Russia had “no efficient parliamentary system, no independent judicial system, and no developed municipal administration”, it warned. Parliamentary parties were “imitations”. The leadership had “bought” bureaucrats’ loyalty by allowing them to steal. But corruption was out of control, and now the main factor determining policies in many areas.
Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister who now leads a liberal opposition party barred from the elections, was surprised to even be invited to Valdai, but not by what he heard. “I don’t see any gap between what I’m saying and what everyone else here is saying,” he said. “We’re all in the opposition now.”
All this may, of course, be a kind of “contained glasnost”, a pressure valve allowing the intelligentsia to let off steam out of most Russians’ earshot.
More difficult to judge is whether disillusionment is spreading among ordinary Russians – where Mr Putin’s support has always been the most robust – and if it is, how many might act on it.
A poll last week from the Levada Centre, a respected pollster, showed some signs of dissatisfaction. Support had fallen to 51 per cent for United Russia – which in recent years has taken the old Soviet Communist party’s role as the “party of power” and transmission network for the leadership.
That is 13 percentage points below what United Russia scored in the 2007 parliamentary election, and raises questions over whether the party can garner a respectable total next month, or whether it might have to pad the result.
Approval ratings for Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev, meanwhile, had fallen to 61 per cent and 57 per cent respectively – high by western standards, but 20 points below their peak early last year. Mr Putin’s rating is the lowest since August 2000.
Based on focus group research, Mikhail Dmitriev, a leading economist who heads a think tank, has warned since spring that the leadership faces growing legitimacy problems. He suggests the new job swap Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev announced in September has done big damage to the two men’s already declining political “brand”, leaving many Russians feeling disenfranchised.
The chances of such sentiments escalating into a Middle East-style uprising do appear slim. One Russian Valdai expert suggested Russia, after 1917 and 1991, had “used up its quota of revolutions”.
“Because of the Soviet legacy and the 1990s, ordinary Russians don’t trust one another,” adds James Sherr of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. “They don’t combine in collective political activity. They solve their problems independently, with their families and friends. They opt out.”
Yet the Arab spring has shown that small sparks can produce unexpected results.
If election rigging on December 4 is too blatant, it could yet provide a test of assumptions over Russians’ passivity.
By Neil Buckley in Moscow
Russia’s parliamentary elections on December 4 and presidential poll next March are often dismissed as processes whose outcomes are pre-ordained. But the Kremlin may find it more difficult to control the results than it once did.
The mood in Russia has changed since the last electoral cycle four years ago. Back then, the economy was still growing at 7 per cent a year, the global financial crisis a distant cloud. Moscow’s leadership brimmed with confidence.
Most Russians would have been happy to see then president Vladimir Putin remove a constitutional limit of two consecutive presidential terms and stay on. Instead, he installed Dmitry Medvedev as placeholder president and moved to the prime minister’s chair – respecting the letter, if not spirit, of the constitution.
Now Mr Putin is coming back for a third presidential term, Russia’s intellectual and business elites, at least, are no longer sure this is a good thing. Debates at last week’s annual Valdai Discussion Club, a Putin initiative dating from 2004 that brings together top foreign and domestic specialists on Russia, revealed deep unease.
Emboldened, perhaps, by the off-the-record format, many Russian participants – including those who once broadly backed Mr Putin – openly questioned whether today’s ossified political system could deliver the modernisation Russia needs.
Timothy Colton, a Harvard professor who summarised the group’s findings to Mr Putin at a dinner on Friday, suggested that most agreed on one thing: “The present model of government, which took shape in Russia in the last 10 or 12 years, appears to have exhausted its potential.”
A report prepared mostly by Russian experts as the basis for the Valdai discussions gave an even starker assessment.
Today’s Russia had “no efficient parliamentary system, no independent judicial system, and no developed municipal administration”, it warned. Parliamentary parties were “imitations”. The leadership had “bought” bureaucrats’ loyalty by allowing them to steal. But corruption was out of control, and now the main factor determining policies in many areas.
Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister who now leads a liberal opposition party barred from the elections, was surprised to even be invited to Valdai, but not by what he heard. “I don’t see any gap between what I’m saying and what everyone else here is saying,” he said. “We’re all in the opposition now.”
All this may, of course, be a kind of “contained glasnost”, a pressure valve allowing the intelligentsia to let off steam out of most Russians’ earshot.
More difficult to judge is whether disillusionment is spreading among ordinary Russians – where Mr Putin’s support has always been the most robust – and if it is, how many might act on it.
A poll last week from the Levada Centre, a respected pollster, showed some signs of dissatisfaction. Support had fallen to 51 per cent for United Russia – which in recent years has taken the old Soviet Communist party’s role as the “party of power” and transmission network for the leadership.
That is 13 percentage points below what United Russia scored in the 2007 parliamentary election, and raises questions over whether the party can garner a respectable total next month, or whether it might have to pad the result.
Approval ratings for Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev, meanwhile, had fallen to 61 per cent and 57 per cent respectively – high by western standards, but 20 points below their peak early last year. Mr Putin’s rating is the lowest since August 2000.
Based on focus group research, Mikhail Dmitriev, a leading economist who heads a think tank, has warned since spring that the leadership faces growing legitimacy problems. He suggests the new job swap Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev announced in September has done big damage to the two men’s already declining political “brand”, leaving many Russians feeling disenfranchised.
The chances of such sentiments escalating into a Middle East-style uprising do appear slim. One Russian Valdai expert suggested Russia, after 1917 and 1991, had “used up its quota of revolutions”.
“Because of the Soviet legacy and the 1990s, ordinary Russians don’t trust one another,” adds James Sherr of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. “They don’t combine in collective political activity. They solve their problems independently, with their families and friends. They opt out.”
Yet the Arab spring has shown that small sparks can produce unexpected results.
If election rigging on December 4 is too blatant, it could yet provide a test of assumptions over Russians’ passivity.
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