Political Parties Not Paying Attention to or Seeking to Exploit Khabarovsk Protests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 10 – That the Kremlin-controlled media have largely ignored the protests in Khabarovsk is no surprise – the authorities don’t want to advertise them – and that the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party has done the same isn’t either. But the failure of other parties, like KPRF and LDPR, to speak out is worrisome, Konstantin Bubon says.

            It means, the Novaya gazeta correspondent in that Far Eastern Russian city says, that the parties are not real channels for the expression of popular views but only structures concerned about maintaining their places at the feeding trough supplied by the regime (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2020/08/10/86602-v-strane-politicheskih-nuley).

            In other countries, opposition parties would have worked hard to suggest they were with the people as a way of building their authority and electoral strength; but in Russia, the reverse is the case. Even local deputies from the KPRF and LDPR have been very slow to say anything about the demonstrations, even when it was clear their followers are involved.

            This pattern means that there are no structures and institutions in which the population can place their trust and have any confidence that they will speak out for the people as opposed to the powers above them. Indeed, the new LDPR head of Khabarovsk declared not that he wanted support from the people but rather the backing of the Kremlin.

            “Without regular political and party life, the state becomes something like a skeleton stripped bear of its flesh, which should consist of people, citizens and their voluntary organizations. If parties are incapable of attracting people to cooperate with them, then what chances remain for citizens to take part in common efforts?”

            The skeleton of the Russian state consists “only of siloviki who can force unarmed people to submission but cannot build an economy or healthy social life,” Bubon says. But in the end, the siloviki and those above them will find out that without the people, they will have nothing left to rule.