Politics
While the world’s attention is on the U.S. mid-term elections, what it means for President Trump, the United States as a whole and even for Moscow and President Putin himself, why is there almost no attention on the regional elections in Russia that took place in September? I argue that the results of the Russian elections are even more dramatic for Moscow.
Yes, there is a general expectation that elections in Russia are everything but democratic: the voter turnout is low, people do not really have a choice at the ballots, the government party United Russia is winning, Kremlin candidates will gain the majority, vote counts are fraudulent and last but not least any opposition is suppressed. Initially, the election results show it is not any different: United Russia remains the strongest party, most incumbents keep their mandate, and there is no overthrow of power in the Kremlin. So why should we care about elections, if they do not bring any political change?
The Russian Mid-Term elections
There are several things that are different and a closer look at the elections is worthwhile:
- About 45 percent of the Russian population was called to the ballots during the regional elections in 22 regions of different geographic areas. The results can thus be considered as a representative political trend for the country as a whole.
- United Russia lost about eight percent of its votes. This is a high number considering that the number of parties allowed for elections are limited and consist of only “systemic” opposition parties, such as the Communist Party and the populist Liberal-Democratic Party. These two parties are playing according to the rules of the government.
- Four district governors lost their re-election in the first round. Direct election of regional governors was re-introduced in 2012 as a reaction of the 2011 public protests ahead of the 2012-presidential elections. Since then, only one incumbent governor lost his popular vote in 2015, which already then was a big deal for the Russian government.
- The four district governors tremendously lost the second round of the election against candidates of the Liberal Democrats or the Communist Party. Both party’s candidates are usually not very popular.
- The voter turnout for the second round increased dramatically in those regions, where the incumbents lost the first round. A low voter turnout is typical; the Russian citizen does not believe to have any influence at the ballot box. However, the interpretation of voter turnout in Russia is a complex issue: the meaning of the increasing number is discussed later in this article.
The Russian opposition counts three
The Russian political system is a democracy by the constitution; the government enforces an autocratic regime since almost twenty years under President Putin. Although the regime does everything to suppress any organized political opposition that persists inside the political system, a political opposition in Russia exists and it is strong. So far, we were able to distinguish between two challenging oppositional groups. The regime managed to control both those groups. Now with the latest elections result, we are able to identify a third oppositional group that might have the potential to cause a serious threat to the current regime. Who are those groups and why can they or cannot cause a serious threat?
- Alexei Navalny and the suppressed political opposition
The first group of the Russian opposition is the suppressed political opposition (SPO) that operates mainly outside the system in a political underground. The former chess player Gerri Kasparov and the assassinated former Russian energy minister Boris Nemzov belong to this group. Its most prominent leader, however, is Alexey Navalny, who has been most successful to unify those in his Party of Progress, who declare the change of the political system of Russia as its overarching goal. That is why the SPO in Russia has permanently restricted access to opinion making process via the media or public rallies and does not take apart as a legal contender in any elections.
Navalny’s attempt to become a presidential candidate was blatantly prevented by his criminal records, which he collected during his protest campaigns. The SPO is playing outside the system and is doing better there. The SPO’s success is to show that not just the government itself, but the whole political system is corrupt and controlled by the elites. The SPO seems to have less power to challenge the current regime, unless a movement like the Party of Progress, for example, becomes powerful enough to topple the government – most likely, however, through public unrest. Although this is possible, as seen in other former Soviet Republics, it is rather unlikely to happen in Russia.
The SPO still holds some powerful tools on its side: the social media is hard to control by the authorities; most of Navalny’s announcements are published on online platforms to which in specific young Russians has access to. Most of Navalny’s supporters belong to the younger generation of the Russians. The adolescent elite thus might be able to enforce a rather “evolutional” political transition.
Now, the SPO immediate tool is the ability to mobilize for election boycotts as a legal tool to demonstrate disapproval to the regime. As stated earlier, the voter turnout in Russia is an important figure to measure political activity. A high voter turnout could consequently mean two things, either the ability of the regime to mobilize voter who support the government’s party for whatever reason, or a high number of voters, who believe in the ability to change the politics within the political system. The election boycott is at the moment is one of Navalny’s strongest weapons. For the rest of President Putin term and possibly thereafter he will not be able to run for president.
- Medvedev, Sobchak, and co
The second group is the opposition to President Putin himself. What United Russia is for the parliamentary election, is Vladimir Putin for the presidential elections, the ultimate frontrunner. Equal to parliamentary elections, there is also a group of presidential candidates admitted and nominated by the systemic parties, who usually get the second and third place. This is to provide elections a pseudo-democratic legitimacy.
Over the past decades, the Communist Party’s candidate Gennady Zyuganov has been the most prominent contender, first for former President Boris Yelzin to whom he was a serious contender. Later, during the Putin years of the 2000s, Zyuganov remained the Communist Party candidate with the exception of 2004, despite the fact that his prospects to gain votes shrunk dramatically. In 2018, Zyuganov did not run against Putin anymore. The Liberal-Democratic leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky played and plays a similar role, but with far fewer chances. However, in Russia, there were several figures that tested Putin’s system of undisputed superiority with some success.
The independent presidential candidates of 2012, Mikhail Prokhorov and of 2018, Ksenia Sobchak as much as the former minister of finance, Alexey Kudrin, and even former President Dmitry Medvedev belong to a group of people that somewhat gained the opportunity to establish opposition to Putin and his closest circles. Mikhail Prokhorov is a Russian billionaire, who gained eight percent of the 2012 election, which made him third after Putin and Zyuganov. He did not challenge Putin in his power, but his decision to run for President came for some as a surprise as he did not emerge as a systemic candidate. He is also a member of the Russian oligarchy and established a reasonable political program, although not directed against Putin. In reality, Prokhorov political views were closely aligned to the Kremlin’s politics under then-President Medvedev, whose waiver of a second term led to Prokhorov’s decision to run for President.
The situation of Ksenia Sobchak was somewhat different: she has been a younger and inexperienced contender to Putin, with fewer prospects to become a real challenger. As the daughter of Putin’s former political partner and mayor of Saint Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, she was certainly not unknown to Putin. Ksenia Sobchak took opposition to Putin, but in the 2018 elections, Sobchak won only about two percent of the votes, placed behind the systemic candidates. However, Sobchak’s candidacy was welcomed by Putin’s campaigners for two reasons. First, she continues what Prokhorov did, making the elections more interesting for the public audience, especially the voters, who would not go to the ballots, if not at least some political debate existed in Russia. Second, Sobchak’s attention-grabbing candidacy also serves as a distraction from Navalny’s outreach to the youth and his election- boycott campaign. Both, Sobchak and Navalny know how to use the social- and new media and outplay each other in Putin’s favor.
The former President and now-Prime Minister Medvedev plays a somehow different role in this opposition group, as he obviously a member of the regime, a close ally to Putin, and he appeared during his presidency to act in a close alliance as a “tandem” with Putin as his Prime Minister. Between 2008 and 2012, Putin served as Russia’s prime minister as he could not become president in more than two consecutive terms. Despite Medvedev’s close alliance with Putin, he was able to set some marks to his presidential term: Improved relations with the U.S. and a generally more liberal economic policy are just some examples. Prokhorov’s as much as Sobchak’s candidacy in the following elections, were at least in parts based on the continuation of Medvedev’s legacy. Medvedev’s decision against a second term has certainly been a result of Putin’s wish to return to power. The support for a second term for Medvedev was certainly present partly within the Russian elite, but it also would have been welcomed by the international community. His type of person will return into the focus in the future when it comes to the nomination of Putin’s successor in 2024.
Alexey Kudrin, as the former minister of finance under Putin and Medvedev, was ousted by Medvedev in his final years. Kudrin once held an important position as finance minister, the administrator of Russia’s large oil and gas export revenues of the early 2000s. Kudrin thus belonged to Putin’s closest allies and his dismissal led to Kudrin’s later attempt to create a position critical to the economic and fiscal politics inside Russia’s political elite. He belongs to one of a few individuals who can openly criticize the President’s policy. In 2015, Kudrin called for early presidential elections, spurring rumors for him running as a candidate. In 2017, Kudrin was appointed by Putin to draft an economic policy for Putin’s coming presidential term – signaling Kudrin’s rehabilitation within the regime.
The alternative to Putin presidential candidates is not a unified opposition – their options to tackle to incumbent are different and to a different extent, but they have one commonality: the creation of a win-win-situation that benefits the president as much as the contender. Putin can only allow competition when he knows that he remains unchallenged in power and has the potential to gain votes. The contender has the insurance that the system allows him to follow an opposing policy as long as the incumbent remains in power.
- The rebirth of the Communist Party
The third group of opposition is not new, but one that reached another level of opposition. It is the systemic opposition that emancipated into a serious contender for Putin and the United Russia party. In other words, it is the Russian Communist Party for several reasons.
Going back to the 2018 regional elections results, in four regions the United Russia candidate lost the majority, in two of them to the Communist Party candidate, the other two went to the Liberal-Democratic Party. The loss of the majority in a region overall has a big impact on the condition of the Russian government. Elections are closely controlled by the government and the party in power, opposition parties and movements are completely banned, the fact that the voter can still express discontent is thus more than a political setback, it is a crisis for the Russian ruling elite. The Communist Party is the currently the winner in this crisis.
In summer 2018, the Russian government decided to lift the retirement age for male Russian citizen from 60 to 65 years and from 55 to 60 years for a female Russian citizen. This unpopular decision has led to mass protests on the streets across Russia. The decision was made in summer during the Football World Cup to avoid public attention as much as possible, but the outrage is unexpectedly high and can be seriously problematic for the regime. Different to other social hardships that the Russian people experienced over the last years, including economic sanctions, falling oil prices, and the war in Syria, the retirement age reform cannot be easily averted from the responsibility of the Russian government. President Putin’s approval rates – which are the most important measure of his legitimacy – fell for ten points after this decision was made. The majority of Putin’s electorate is to find in the elder citizen at the retirement age. In the 2012 presidential elections, Putin’s success was highly dependent on pension rises for example and other promises he made for senior citizen and the public sector. Now Putin touches upon his base and this has to do by a devastating economic situation in Russia and an overstretched budgetary spending. The protest against the reform has triggered the people to go the ballots and express their discontent by giving their vote to anyone else than United Russia. The limited choice of parties admitted to election led to an accumulation of votes for both systemic oppositions.
The Communist Party, however, is the single winner for two specific reasons. Of course, Communism is not a concept of the modern times and the Soviet Union does not return, but the party is there and has established and traditional structures differently to all other Russian political parties. Also unlike many former socialist Central- and Eastern European countries, the socialist and communist authoritarian rule of the past has never been demonized from the state and banned by the society. The second reason is the Communist Party’s ability to take ownership over the issue. The low retirement age was an achievement of the Soviet past and especially those who suffer from these reforms are those who remember the advantages of the Soviet era and thus are rather drawn to those who are, like Zyuganov, or used to be the elites of the past. The Communist Party’s ability to mobilize those who are disappointed by Putin stems from the fact that they have a large constituency across the country, which cannot be easily harassed by the authority, unlike any other opposition movement.
The Kremlin does not give up its power yet. The elites keep their mandates, the tools to suppress the opposition are not exhausted and the global oil price is rising. However, the signs are there for a transition and an opportunity for Putin to call on his succession.