Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 16 – In addition
to all the other “administrative resources” Moscow officials have to control
the outcomes of elections, two developments this week suggest that the upcoming
Duma vote, if in fact it is not put off on one pretext of another, is likely to
be especially meaningless.
On the one hand, the four
parliamentary parties appear to have agreed not to contest each other in at
least 40 single member districts to ensure that their leaders return to the
Russian parliament. And on the other, the Federation Agency for Nationality
Affairs wants to regulate all campaign speech lest as has been the case in the
past it provoke new ethnic tensions.
But if these latest moves do ensure
that the vote will go exactly as Vladimir Putin wants, they also have the
effect of creating a situation in which ever more Russians are likely to see
through the Kremlin’s stratagems and come out into the streets in protest as
they did after the elections in 2011-2012.
Indeed, there is already reason to
think that both of these moves will be resisted even before the vote takes
place and that these fights over their implementation in and of themselves will
create problems for the center far greater than leaving the situation well
enough alone would have.
According to Moscow media reports,
the leaders of the four parties currently in the Duma have agreed that in ten
single-member districts, the leaders of the other four will not challenge the
candidate of one of them so as to ensure that each will be able to ensure that
its top ten leaders will be in the new Duma (polit.ru/article/2016/02/15/duma/).
That
has sparked sharp criticism from Russian commentators like Pavel Svyatenkov who
say that this does no honor to Russian democracy even though they concede that
there are precedents for it in other countries (apn.ru/publications/article34693.htm)
and what is more important threats by party leaders in the regions to torpedo
the agreement
(ura.ru/articles/1036267064).
These threats could destroy what
little party unity there is and even lead to the kind of public disputes and
fragmentation that will reduce still further the legitimacy of one or more of
these parties and of any electoral outcomes that such arrangements may make
possible in one or another part of the Russian Federation.
The other development this week
affecting the upcoming campaigns was a call by Igor Barinov, the head of the
Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs, to have the parties agree not to make
use of nationalist slogans and, failing that, to allow his agency and the
judicial system block campaign materials using them (nazaccent.ru/content/19447-v-fadne-razyasnili-iniciativu-ob-ogranichenii.html).
It is certainly true
as he and others have said that no electoral campaign in Russia has failed to
exacerbate ethnic tensions as parties and candidates seek to win votes by
playing to the views and prejudices of the Russian electorate, including through
the use of such slogans as “Russia for the Russians.”
But
efforts to ban this or that slogan will either offend those who like it or lead
parties to seek workarounds in order to appeal in a cover manner to the same
attitudes. Both will reduce the
legitimacy of the election campaign given that nationalist attitudes, both
Russian and non-Russian, exist in Russia, as Valery Vyzhutovich points out (http://www.politcom.ru/20741.html).
And the Moscow commentator concludes
with words that show just how difficult the task Barinov has set himself is
likely to be. “Nationalist hysteria as a
mass psychosis doesn’t exist in the country,” Vyzhutovich says. “But the
temptation to exploit it” very much does. “And the closer to September the
country goes, the stronger will be that temptation.”
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