By PHK
AP early report - Duma elections as predicted. No surprises here.
I usually find non-fiction – or experiencing life itself – far more exciting than reading other people’s fictionalized versions of it. But considering the state of Russian politics these days, I’ve begun to wonder whether I shouldn’t haul out my copies of Alexander Zinoviev’s Radiant Future, Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, and Yuriy Trifonov’s House on the Embankment – all biting satires on the contorted and difficult life Russians led during the Soviet Union. Or perhaps I should take another look at the searing 1994 film “Burnt by the Sun” – directed and acted by Nikita Mikhalkov – about the devastating effects of a secret NKVD officer on himself, his family and his friends. Better yet, since Mikhailkov has now apparently become a Putin sycophant – maybe he should see it and reflect on its poignant message again, too.
Frankly, I agree with the Organization on Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE). The Russian Federation Duma elections held on December 2 are essentially a sham and sending in western election observers to validate the Putin government’s claims to electoral objectivity would have been a large mistake.
The fact that the Russian government succeeded in keeping out western election observers by withholding visas and substantially reducing the numbers of observers it would allow in itself smacks strongly of electoral politics authoritarian-style. It reminds me of the same tactics used to keep foreigners out during Soviet days. The only way we effectively dealt with this approach was one-for-one, “tit-for-tat.”
Excessive Kremlin state media control, the unexplained murders of investigative journalists and opposition politicians, arrests of political opposition leaders and the recent breaking up of anti-Putin demonstrations just accentuates the current electoral travesty.
Why the political over-kill?
What is bizarre, at least on the surface, is that Putin’s popularity remains at an all time high so why the elections’ stifling over-kill? The question I keep asking myself is why he thinks he needs to resort to such anti-democratic actions now to retain the reins of power.
From a Russian perspective, Putin imposed the hand of a strong leader on a chaotic situation and brought the country from the brink of economic disaster to prosperity – at least for his KGB cronies but also for a growing middle class particularly in cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg. The fact that the rise in prices of oil and gas on the world market is the likely cause of Russia’s new found wealth – not what Putin did or didn’t do - seems to have been lost on most Russian citizens.
At the same time, Putin has apparently exchanged the theology of Communism for that of the Russian Orthodox Church, an organization that is growing in power according to The New York Times. The church hierarchy is in some ways as intolerant of other religions as the Communist Party is intolerant of all religions yet Russia is still a multi-ethnic, multi-religious country despite its shedding of what it calls the “Near Abroad” after August 1991.
It seems to me, however, that the answer to the Duma electoral sham lies in the “what next” and I’m surprised I’ve only heard it referred to in a single broadcast recently – I think in a BBC World interview Friday night - although it is also buried in a November 28 Financial Times article. Namely, if Putin’s supporters obtain two-thirds of the seats in the new Duma, they can legally change the Constitution which now limits the president to two terms in office. With a constitutional change - Putin could, it seems, become president for life.
That same excellent Financial Times analysis predicts that United Russia (the party that supports Putin) will receive 62.1%, the Communists 12.2%, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (Zhirinovsky’s ultra-nationalist party with reputed KBG connections) with 8% and Just Russia 7% (update - this pro-Putin party getting 8%). Other parties have either been barred from competing or will not cross the very high 7 % threshold to make it into the Duma at all.
Who lost Russia?
I do not fault the US for “losing Russia” just as I do not credit Ronald Reagan for causing the demise of the Soviet Union. Neither was America’s to lose or destroy. We need to realize this in thinking about past, present and future relations with this huge country. I was pleasantly surprised to have heard the conservative columnist David Brooks –who reported from Moscow at the time the Soviet Union was falling apart - make a similar observation on The Newshour on November 16 as opposed to spouting the usual right-wing nonsense that erroneously adds to the deification of the Republican Party’s most popular president since Eisenhower.
I think, however, we could have managed our relations with the Russian Federation far more smartly than we have - particularly since 1991. I don’t expect a sea change as long as this Bush administration is in office even if former US Ambassador to Russia Thomas Pickering is installed as a special envoy at the State Department for Russia and the Caspian as Steve Levine predicts. It strikes me that regardless of the White House’s next occupant, that person will need to devote substantial energy to patching-up the tatters of the currently frayed and worsening US-Russian relationship. It won’t be easy. Maybe we’ll get someone with some smarts. At least, we can’t change our Constitution as easily as the Russians can alter theirs.
Photo credits: The House on the Embankment is found on Kevin Moss's Middlebury College webpage "Master and Margarita;" Kremlin Cathedral by JE Hogin, Moscow 1979 (private collection.)