For Kremlin, Khakass Vote Another Testing of Waters for 2024, “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 13 – Given the alarm in some quarters about the defeat of Kremlin-backed candidates in four federal subjects in the September gubernatorial elections, many Russian commentators have barely concealed their surprise that the Putin regime allowed the KPRF’s Valentin Konovalov to win without any opposing candidates in Khakassia.

            Some analysts “close to the Kremlin,” the editors of Nezavisimaya gazeta say, explain this decision as being part of a broader effort to discredit the institution of direct elections altogether by showing that protest voting allow someone unqualified to gain office (ng.ru/editorial/2018-11-12/2_7436_red.html).

                But “protest voting, the readiness to support anyone as long as he isn’t the candidate of the powers, characterizes the population’s level of tiredness in the ruling elite and its rhetoric rather than serves to discredit the institution of elections as such.” Moreover, the authorities “underestimated the strength of the protest electorate.”

            According to the lead article, however, there is another and more appropriate way to view what occurred in Khakassia “and in the country as a whole.”  The political system is designed to be “a cushion of security” for the powers that be. For that to work, those in charge periodically have to test the waters to see whether it retains that capacity.

            The recent losses to the KPRF or the LDPR may be regretted in Moscow but they are not a threat to the rulers, Nezavisimaya gazeta says.  That is because these systemic parties and their candidates “are fighting for their own place in the political sun but not against the system, the power vertical or Putin.”

            Moreover, the paper stresses, “the authorities have a sufficient number of levers to subordinate to themselves any head of a region elected after he enters office.”  As a result, the regime can and indeed on occasion must test the waters. Usually it has been proved right, but “in Khakassia, this maneuver didn’t work.” The protest electorate was too strong.

            As the Moscow paper notes, “the ruling elite is interested in the first instance in 2024. According to existing laws, Vladimir Putin can’t run for another presidential term. Consequently, a successor to him must be found. But a successor is not only a specific person but also a definite model of behavior, an answer to the demands of society.”

            “The political fall of 2018,” the editors conclude, “is one of the first attempts of the authorities to feel the basis under their feet and to understand what this demand may in fact be.” Whatever it learns in any particular case is unlikely to be determinative, but it will go into formulating the answer to the question the powers that be are most interested in. 

            The election of any particular governor does not rise to that level by itself.