20 Opposition Figures in Moscow City Council Protects Sobyanin from Having to Face More Protests, Bely Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 11 – The election of 20 opposition candidates to the Moscow city council may be a victory for the opposition and a defeat for the powers that be; but in one way, URA news agency commentator Mikhail Bely says, their appearance may be a boon for Mayor Sergey Sobyanin because it will tend to preclude any new mass protests.

            Consequently, what almost all stories have suggested is a big loss for Sobyanin may end “paradoxically” by playing into the hands of the mayor.  Indeed, Sobyanin may have been hinting at this when he said that the new composition of the council will have a positive impact on the situation (ura.news/articles/1036278800).

            Gleb Kuznetsov, head of the experts Council of the Expert Institute for Social Research, says that the mayor wasn’t joking.  The opposition deputies do not pose any serious obstacle to the mayor and his agenda, but their presence there will make it far more difficult for activists to organize any new protests against the city government.

            And the opposition deputies will have incentives to avoid new protests.  According to Aleksandr Shpunt of the Higher School of Economics, those who were elected want too work and solve problems rather than engage in political theatrics.  And they won’t be able to do that if there are crowds in the street.

            According to Vyacheslav Danilov, the director of the Center for Political Analysis, “the opposition triumph has been strongly exaggerated.” Most of the deputies are loyal to the mayor and many being described as opposition figures are quite prepared to work with him. They may even see that as a requirement for their own future political success.

            United Russia still has a majority in the Moscow City Duma and can block any moves backed only by opposition deputies, Konstantin Kalachev of the Political Experts’ Group says. And the mayor has another advantage as well: the opposition is hardly a united front on any key issue.

            “But there are nuances,” Danilov suggests. If an opposition figure gains the leadership of one of the city duma committees, he could use that to hold hearings that could be a problem.  And because the opposition will now be playing politics, Sobyanin and his team will have to as well, something that has not been required of them in the past.

            To do that, Ilya Grashenkov of the Center for the Development of Regional Policy says, the mayor’s office will have to use new approaches and communication channels. How successful it is in doing so, he suggests, will cast a large shadow on the Duma elections as other leaders seek to copy successful moves or avoid wrong ones.