Window on Eurasia: Local Elections across Russia Give Opposition Chance for Gains, Moscow Paper Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 19 – In addition to the presidential election, Russians in numerous cities including six regional capitals on March 4 will select mayors and city council members, a process that has attracted much less attention but one that represents both “yet another difficult test” for Vladimir Putin’s United Russia and an opportunity for the political opposition.

            In “Novyye izvestiya” yesterday, Yuiya Savina argues that United Russia may do so poorly in such elections that its officials in Moscow have decided not to advertise the membership of candidates to municipal assemblies” so as not to call attention to its decline (www.newizv.ru/politics/2012-01-18/157670-boi-ne-tolko-mestnogo-znachenija.html).

            The journalist makes her point by surveying some of the key votes.  In Omsk, for example, deputies of the city council decided to hold elections to that body simultaneously with those for the Russian presidency, something the acting mayor, Tatyana Vizhevitova has strongly objected to, apparently because it gives other parties “a chance to take power” locally.

            At least six other cities who have kept the direct election of mayors are likely to have new chiefs, Savina says.  “No surprises” are expected in Astrakhan where United Russia has done well, but in Yaroslavl, there may be a turnover given recent shifts. Moreover, it is clear that United Russia mayors who do poorly “simply cannot continue to work.”

            Indeed, Rostislav Turovsky, head of the regional research department of the Moscow Center of Political Technologies, told the “Novyye izvestiya” writer that this wasn’t something that the individuals directly involved in were going to get to decide but rather was the result of “a directive from the center.”

            One communist deputy in the Yaroslav oblast duma said that combining the elections meant that participation would be higher – voters often don’t turn out for local races iin Russia as is true elsewhere – and “the situation will therefore be more objective than if the voting was carried out separately,” as at least some in United Russia had wanted.

            In some places, Savina writes, there won’t be much of a struggle, but in others, including Pskov, Kirov, Nalchik, Ufa, and Gorno-Altaysk, the competition among candidates may be intense. Some United Russia candidates in these places will benefit from stressing their attachment to Vladimir Putin rather than United Russia, but others will suffer from either link.

            If candidates do try to distance themselves from United Russia, such a tactic “will not convince everyone.” As several experts say, many voters who know is linked with what party however much and perhaps even especially if candidates try to hide their affiliation or conduct “an underground” campaign.

            Valery Khomyakov, a political scientist, told “Novyye izvestiya” that  the efforts of some United Russia candidates to hide their membership “yet again confirms that the December voting in Moscow were falsified and that the rating of United Russia’ in [Moscow] was hardly the 46 percent that was announced.” Instead, it is “significantly lower.”

            Savina concludes her article with the observation that “now, the opposition has the chance to get involved in lower-level politics,” now that a link “with United Russia or with the powers that be as such, especially in Moscow,” is no longer something that will help them. Rather the reverse.

And she quotes Khomyakov as saying that “if the opposition tries to take power at the municipal level … this could be a very good base for the further development of pressure, including on the federal authorities.”

Window on Eurasia: Russian Army Must Block Muftis from Promoting Islam among Soldiers, Military Academy Professor Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 19 – In the face of a rising percentage of Muslims in the Russian armed forces and of calls for a special handbook for them to be prepared by Muslim leaders, a professor at the Russian military academy must ensure that the training of soldiers will “be based only on a scientific worldview,” rather than a religiously-inspired one.

            Given “growing inter-ethnic tensions” connected with the recent demonstrators, Sergey Ivaneyev, who teaches at the All-Forces Academy of the Russian armed services, says in “Voenno-Promyslenny kuriyer,”, “the link between religious and ethnic self-identification” is intensifying throughout Russian society (vpk-news.ru/articles/8548).

            While much of this and especially the opposition between “the Slavic Russian population and Muslims” is both “artificial and provocative,” he continues, no one should ignore this problem or fail to work to prevent its growth, especially in key institutions like the Russian armed forces.

            “All of us must recognize, Ivaneyev writes, “that in Russia, mass religiosity of citizens is a potential source of conflict since each religious system as a result of antagonist social conditions has by its nature a negative and at times openly hostile attitude toward other religions.”

            Such relations, he continues, can take on “hypertrophic forms” and affect entire communities, something that is “especially evident when leaders of a negative direction” use the presence of their co-religionists or co-ethnics in military units of various sizes to promote their own interests or to defend their groups against commanders and others

            Indeed, such “inter-ethnic conflicts can acquire particularly sharp and fanatic forms” and lead to calls for “a religious war” and for “the complete destruction of its opponent and of members of all other faiths.” And that danger, Ivaneyev continues, is visible in calls for the production of “a special handbook for Muslim draftees” that some muftis want to prepare.

            Seven years ago, the Russian military, working with Sheikh Ravil Gaynutdin, prepared a 102-page booklet entitled “Methodological Recommendations to Infantry Officers on Work with Muslim Soldiers.”  But despite the shortcomings of that pamphlet, Ivaneyev says, allowing Russian muftis to prepare and disseminate a larger one could exacerbate the situation.

            Even the 2005 publication suffered because it was written “not on the basis of scientific religious studies but from the position of a contemporary ‘ideological’ theology and objectively was directed at the strengthening of the position of Islam in society and in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and also at the defense of this religion” from analysis and criticism.

            Any new work, prepared not by scholars but by Muslim religious leaders, he says, would be even more provocative, for as the Carnegie Moscow Center scholar A.V. Malashenko has put it, “we observe a lack of correspondence between the Islamic and Russian civil vectors of identity.”

            Russia’s force structures, the military scholar says, “have dealt well with the tasks of destroying and neutralizing the expansion of Islamism.” But there is a shortcoming in their work more generally: “we do not always know about those social-worldview sources which feed contemporary forms of Islamic extremism, fundamentalism and terrorism.”

            And that means there is a real risk that the spread of the Islamic faith, especially if it takes place on its own terms, could lead to “anti-social activity” and forms of “Muslim extremism,” which starts with efforts to hold Islam “as the highest model of spiritual culture which [supposedly] corresponds to the interests of the individual and world society as a whole.”

            A directive of the Procurator General, Interior Ministry and FSB on December 16, 2008, Ivaneyev says, specified that “extremism under the cover of Islam has spread into a number of phenomena which are essentially influencing the criminogenic situation in Russia” and that “90 percent” of those involved in terrorism “have direct ties to Islamist organizations.”

            Today, given “the clericalization of the army and fleet,” he continues, “the underlying principles of the very conception of the training of soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are being violated,” and consequently, commanders must work to promote “a scientific world view” and its related “moral norms.”

            In this situation, “the importance of the problem of forming the moral-legal consciousness of Russia’s Muslim soldiers is growing in particular.”

            Those who are to be “convinced defenders” of Russia, he argues, “must be trained only from the position of a secular worldview” and be ready to act “not according to religious motivations” before God and eternity “but from the conviction of the need to fulfill his civic obligations regardless of his personal religious convictions.”

            Such an approach, Ivaneyev says, is necessary “because Russian society is multi-national and poly-confessional.” Allowing Muslim religious leaders to instruct Muslim soldiers on their own could undermine these various goals, and consequently, the military must insist that Muslim troops learn not from them but from “the study of the foundations of scientific Islamic studies.”

Window on Eurasia: Putin Urged to Create Ministry for Demographic Development

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 19 – The leader of the Russians Foundation has written to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urging him to establish a special ministry for demographic development to deal with the country’s demographic decline, migration, and support for compatriots living outside of the Russian Federation.

            The Marker.ru news agency reported yesterday that Leonid Shershenev, in a letter signed by other ethnic Russian leaders, told the premier that “only the establishment of a new state organ will be able to solve the problems of emigration and the continuing reduction in the size of the Russian population” (marker.ru/news/512239).

            In the letter, Shershenev also said that in his opinion, there was no need to restore the ministry for nationality affairs which simply “lobbied for the interests of the leaderships of national minorities to the harm of the broad strata of the population” and “never even once” discussed the demographic problems of the Russian nation.”

            A Ministry for Demographic Development, the foundation head continued, would be different. Its departments would oversee the government’s “demographic policy” and would develop a state “concept” to ensure not only a common approach of all agencies but also progress in turning Russia’s demographic situation around

             Shershenev is not the first to make this argument, the news agency reported. Seven years ago, it said, “Igor Beloborodov, the director of the Moscow Institute of Demographic Research, made the same proposal, and recently, he even posted this idea on the prime minister’s website  And deputies from Just Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party have advanced similar ideas

            Beloborodov told Marker.ru that Russia has “the largest indicator of population decline” of any country in the world and complained that despite pledges by the country’s leaders to do something about this, “there have not been any administrative actions for the resolution of the problems.”

            As a result, he continued, the various agencies involved with population questions do so in an uncoordinated fashion and only as a secondary issue to their primary responsibilities.” As a result, one cannot speak of a genuine state policy in this critical area, a situation that he said “should not be the case.”

               “But not all experts consider that the creation of a new state agency would solve the problem of the reduction in the number of Russians,” the news agency says. Some think its creation would only “increase the number of bureaucrats,” without having any impact on the underlying forces at work

            Elena Tyuryukanova, a scholar at the Moscow Institute of Social-Economic Problems of Population, for example, opposes creating such a ministry. “In order to come up with a conception of demographic development, it isn’t necessary to create a ministry.” Indeed, Russia already has such a concept paper.” Setting up a new ministry wouldn’t change anything.

Window on Eurasia: ‘Liberal’ Weakness has Allowed ‘Aggressive Russian Nationalism’ to Grow, Social Chamber Told

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 18 – The Social Chamber yesterday held a discussion on “The Nationalist Danger in Russia: The Results of 2011. Trends, Prospects, and Countermeasures,” a session at which many views on that subject were aired and which has attracted a great deal of attention in the Moscow media.

            The main presentation was made by Valery Engel, the deputy chairman of “World Without Nazism, in which he outlined the findings and conclusions of Semyon Charny’s report on “The Social Bases and manifestations of Nationalistic Attitudes in the Russian Federation” in 2011 (worldwithoutnazism.wordpress.com/monitor/russia/2011-overview/).

            According to Engel, the number of extreme right-wing Russian nationalists itoday is some 20 to 24 thousand, but despite their numbers, they are now seeking to have an impact on the country’s power structures and even penetrate them rather than engage in easily suppressed violent action (www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/discussions/2012/01/d23436/).

            He concluded his pessimistic report by suggesting that “the growth of the aggressive activity of nationalistic leaders in Russia is taking place on the background of [and clearly because of] the weakness displayed by the liberal wing” of Russian public opinion (oprf.ru/press/news/2012/newsitem/16412).

            Another participant, Nikolay Svanidze, the chairman of the Chamber’s Commission on Interethnic Relations and Freedom, suggested that the radical right had already been successful in penetrating the government and that Dmitry Rogozin, former Russian ambassador to NATO, is an example of that threat.

             He added, “Moskovskie novosti” reports today, that “Russian society may be presented with a choice between Rogozin and Aleksey Navalny who is inclined to use ‘the popular resource’ of nationalism,” noting that the radicals view themselves as potential “brides” of whatever group will offer them the most (mn.ru/society_ethnic/20120118/309942823.html).

            Aleksandr Verkhovsky, the director of the SOVA Center, said that his views in large measure coincide with those of Engel. He said that the police have been able to reduce thenumber of criminal actions by the extreme nationalists, prompting the latter to turn to legal political action while maintaining “anti-system rhetoric.”

            He added that “at present, Russia cannot completely exclude nationalism from the life of society, but he argued that it is very important that political leaders ensure that the Russian population understands just what a nation is. Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin were taking steps in this direction a year ago but since then have cut back on this “almost to nothing.”

            Verkhovsky was followed by Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the outspoken head of the social-relations department of the Moscow Patriarchate.  He argued that nationalists have the right to speak out because “liberal democracy is not a universal recipe” for solving all problems. Instead, he called for “uniting” Russians against “xenophobia and separatism.”

            The Orthodox churchman added that “it is necessary to solve the problems that ‘patriotic organizations’ are raising,” including the lack of definition of the status of the ethnic Russian people and “the difficulty of its self-organization” as a traditionally evolved ethno-social community (www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/1962293.html).

            Vladiir Zorin, a former Russian minister for nationality affairs, pointedly asked why Engel and the others were not talking about migration patterns since “it is evident,” he said, “that precisely the growth of migration pressure in the big cities is also a cause of the growth of tension” in Russian society (mn.ru/society_ethnic/20120118/309942823.html).

            Other speakers provided additional perspectives. Aleksandr Sokolov, a member of the Social Chamber, said that “in practice, all opposition forces in Russia are playing the nationalist card” and that in the current presidential campaign, there is likely to be “an outburst of nationalist rhetoric,” a development he called on Vladimir Putin to condemn.

            Georgy Fedorov, the president of the Center of Social and Poltiical Research, noted that it is extremely difficult to “separate out nationalists who are capable of negotiation.”  But he said liberals must try, rather than as is often the case “toying” with nationalists as Boris Akunin did recently in his conversation with Navalny.

And finally, political scientist Mikhail Tulsky said it is also a mistake to brand everyone in the government or out who can be accused of one or another form of xenophobia to be a member of some kind of “party of nationalists.”  Failure to distinguish between such people and the real radical right overstates the power of the latter (mn.ru/politics/20120117/309942626.html).

Window on Eurasia: Next Phase of Russian Crisis Likely to Arise in Provinces, Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 18 – Sergey Belanovsky, research director of the Moscow Center of Strategic Developments which predicted the mass demonstrations at the end of 2011, says that the next phase of Russia’s political crisis is likely to take place in the provinces, with strikes and uprisings there attracting sympathy and support from the urban middle class.

            In an interview posted on the “Russky zhurnal” portal yesterday, the sociologist says that unlike many of his colleagues, he personally “did not expect such activity” in Moscow, adding that those thinking about the future need to remember that it is not the case that “all revolutions are made in capital cities” (www.russ.ru/pole/Perspektivy-politicheskogo-krizisa).

            While many revolutions are in fact made there, Belanovsky continues, “there is another type of revolution” which could be “purely conditionally called ‘the peasant war,’ when on the territory of a large country uprisings break out which then come together into a single movement” beyond the capacity of the central authorities to cope.

            China, of course, has been a “classical” case of such revolutions throughout history, he noted, adding that he considers that “it is completely probable that in Russia all will go namely according to the scenario of a peasant war,” a conclusion he reached on the basis of a number of focus group sessions in central Russia outside of Moscow.

            Participants in these sessions routinely complain about governors who take care of their capitals but do little or nothing for the rest of their regions or republics. Such attitudes are likely to grow, Belanovsky says, leading to the outbreak of strikes and protests about specific issues beyond the capacity of the regime to deal with.

            A major reason why he expects that pattern of development and why unlike others he believed that not everything “will begin in the capital,” the analyst continues, is that Moscow has been “quiet for quite a long time.” The middle class there has now woken up, but it is not alone: future events “will intensify both in the capital and in the provinces.”

            Asked about his institute’s suggestion that following parliamentary elections there would need to be a coalition government and a new prime minister, Belanovsky says that such a figure must be “attractive and sufficiently independent … in any case “not [incumbent President] Dmitry Medvedev.”

            Unfortunately, the analyst suggests, there are not a large number of such people around, but the list might include Igor Sechin and Sergey Ivanov, who might be able to overcome a situation which currently is defined by the “aging” of “brand Putin” and the danger of a new period of stagnation.

            According to Belanovsky, there is “no chance” that “brand Putin” can be “rehabilitated.” The only thing that could continue would be “a scenario of conservatism.” That is at least possible because “the female electorate… categorically does not want a revolution. Perhaps, it will be this segment [of the population] that will allow the situation to be preserved.”

            Putin may somehow be able to maintain his “brand” even after the March elections, but if he does so, the analyst argues, it will be possible to “make an analogy with the Brezhnev brand,” although the situation today “is already not what it was then.” At that time, the regime was able to maintain “the illusion” of control, but it cannot do so now.

            The power structures of today and of Putin “in particular” may be able to change their rhetoric but they “are not in a situation to seriously influence the situation in the country,” he goes on to say. Putin’s practice of combining “threatening rhetoric” with inaction” is “losing its effectiveness and the people are tired of it.”

            Putin will certainly try to advance a new program much as Soviet leaders did at meetings of the Communist Party, but people will only react negatively now just as they reacted negatively 30-40 years ago – and for the same reason, they won’t listen to the message, even if it is reasonable, because they have already reached a judgment on the messenger.

            Clearly, Belanovsky concludes, the protest wave will proceed in a sine curve, with periods of growth and periods of decline.  In response, as it has done already, the powers will make “concessions,” albeit only “nominal ones.” But such concessions will “provoke and intensify the pressure” against them.

            In this situation, the sociologist says, something will break out “somewhere in the provinces.” Then, “in Moscow, protest groups will immediately assemble in support of the regional protests” and send “volunteer emissaries.”  The country will thus be united in this way because after all “the Internet works.”

             

Window on Eurasia: A Dagestani Muslim Builds a Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 18 – Gadzhi Gadzimusayev, a Daghestani Muslim who has lived in Moscow for 45 years,, has given 150 million rubles (5 million US dollars) to build a Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow because he “wanted to leave something after himself for the good of Muscovites.”

            Gadzhimusayev took this step, Archpriest Sergey Kiselev of the Trinity Church District in the Russian capital told “Vechernyaya Moskva” on Monday , when no Orthodox Christian appeared ready to do so.  The cornerstone of the new church was laid this week, and the brick church is slated to open this summer (www.vmdaily.ru/showarticle.php?id=339312).

            Anton Elin, a journalist at that paper, asked Gadzhimusayev “why he had spent money on an Orthodox church and not on a mosque.” He responded that although born in Daghestan, he had lived “45 years in Moscow” and that he “wanted to leave after himself something for the good” of the city and “a church is better than any other monument because it will be eternal.”.

            Gadzhimusayev added that he had already contributed to the construction of two other churches but that the latest one will be special: “the cupola will be covered with gold and it will be build with red brick.” He said he was following the behavior of the Prophet Muhammed who “protected the monastery of St. Catherine” and added that in his view, “God is one.”

            Archpriest Sergey told the paper that the Orthodox Church had not in this case “seen any [Orthodx] investors so far.” They exist, he suggested, “but there aren’t any o fthem as it were.  For our Orthodox people, the Muslims are an example.” And he noted that a Muslim factory director on the outskirts of Moscow had recently opened a chapel in the yard of his firm.

            While neither Gadzhimusayev or Sergey mentioned it, there may be other reasons behind the Daghestani’s investment. On the one hand, such actions almost certainly are intended to overcome tensions between Russians and arrivals from Daghestan and other parts of the North Caucasus.

            And on the other, the unwillingness of Moscow officials to allow the construction of even a seventh mosque in a city which has more than two million people of Muslim heritage may mean that anyone who wants to build a religious facility has little choice but to contribute to the construction of a church, possibly in the hopes that Muslims will be able to pray there as well.

Window on Eurasia: Only 30 percent of Region Heads Have Good Chance to Win Elections, Russian Analyst Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 17 – Only 30 percent of the heads of regions and republics in the Russian Federation have a good chance to win re-election if Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s draft proposal to restore elections at that level of the country’s political system is accepted by the Russian State Duma, according to a Moscow expert.

            But the provisions of the final form of such legislation and the ways in which it might be subverted by strong central executive power are already sparking discussions in Moscow about whether Medvedev’s proposal constitutes a genuine return to electoral democracy in the regions or whether it is a kind of window dressing in advance of the March 4 presidential vote.

            If the heads of Russia’s federal subjects again are to be filled by popular vote, Yevgeny Minchenko, the head of the International Institute of Political Expertise, told the Novy region news agency yesterday, “one can expect a serious rotation of the heads of regions” because only 30 of the incumbents would likely win such votes (www.nr2.ru/moskow/367578.html).

            The others “have no chance” at all, he suggested. Among those with the least chances of election are the heads of the republics of Adygeya, Kabardino-Balkaria, Kalmykia, Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Karelia, Komi, North Osetia, tyva, Udmurtia, and Chuvashia, an indication of just how unpopular their leaders are among the non-Russian nations of the country.

            Other leaders likely to fail in any bid for election would be the heads of the Krasnodar, Transbaikal, Perm, Primorsky and Stavropol kray, and the head of Khakassia, yet another indication that non-Russians within the Russian Federation who make up sizeable percentages of the population of these subjects are also ready to vote for change.

            Among regional heads with mid-range chances to win a popular vote, the Moscow political expert said, are the heads of Bahkortostan, Buryatiya, Daghestan, Ingushetia, Mari El, Yakutia, Kamchatka and Krasnoyarsk kray. And mong those with “the greatest chance” are the governors of places like Voronezh, Kemerovo, and Kaluga as well as Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov, Tatarstan President Rustam Minikhanov and Mordovia head Nikolay Merkushkin.

            Then, Minchenko said, there are some special cases. Moscow’s currenthead has “not bad chances” to be elected because “Moscow is so constructed that it is complicated to restore competitive elections:” there are no “specifically Moscow media,” and it is very difficult to conduct a “door to door” campaign since the numbers of voters is so large.

            But in his comments to the news agency, Minchenko said his estimate may not matter because the real issue is elsewhere: “Medvedev has come out with a proposal, but [Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin is silent,” raising the question of what is really going on and whether gubernatorial elections will in fact return.

            In an article in today’s “Nezavisimaya gazeta,” journalists Aleksey Gorbachev and Ivan Rodin explore some of the details of Medvedev’s proposal, details that may be changed in the course of parliamentary consideration or may be exploited in ways that would reduce the significance of the restoration of such votes (www.ng.ru/politics/2012-01-17/1_gubernator.html).

            According to Medvedev’s draft, parties could nominate candidates but such candidates would have to be confirmed in some way or other by the president, possibly a face-saving measure for Putin who did away with gubernatorial voting or possibly a way to vitiate popular sovereignty altogether. Candidates could also win nomination by petition.

            The “Nezavisimaya” journalists say that sources in the Kremlin “assure that consultations with the president will bear a purely voluntary character,” but on the basis of their past experience, many Russians and indeed many Russian parliamentarians may be deeply suspicious of such claims.

            That is all the more so because “before the mass protest actions,” President Medvedev spoke about the return of gubernatorial elections “as an extremely distant perspective,” and several years earlier,he said that “the return of the former system of electing governments was not something [Russia] needed even a century from now.”

            Moreover, in July 2011, Putin, the Moscow paper continues, “said that “there is ‘no violation of the principles of democracy’” involved in the appointment rather than election of governors. He added that elections only made the governors corrupt because they allowed candidates to “manipulate public opinion” and engage in corrupt practices.

            Now, as Aleksey Makarkin, the deputy general director of the Moscow Center of Political Technologies, pointed out, “the situation in the country has changed;” and Medvedev at least has changed his tune, although whether he, let alone Putin who preceded and plans to succeed him have changed their past views remains to be seen.

            Makarkin suggested that provisions calling for presidential approval of candidates were frought with difficulties: “If the president will be a dominating figure, then his disapproval of a candidate proposed by the parties might be viewed as an informal veto, but an attempt to block a popular candidate would have a negative impact on the president himself.”