Second, while Putin carefully marked his distance from all the political parties, even creating another party, Just Russia, – to the left of United Russia, the brutal power struggle behind Kremlin walls, extending into the secretive quarters of the intelligence services and the financial world, seems to have forced his hand, steered him into the thick of the electoral battle and compelled him to throw his hat into the ring. Obviously the balance of power was shifting and threatening to spin out of control. So Putin had to assert his role as the supreme powerbroker. What would have been the alternative? Nobody outside the Kremlin can tell, but the rumour mill produced all kinds of explanations, including an unconcealed struggle between various branches of the intelligence services for the spoils of power.
Third, and most conspicuous, during the run-up to the election the United Russia campaign took on a decidedly nationalistic tone, accusing unspecified foreign forces of scheming against the great motherland and denouncing every opponent as being in the pockets of foreign governments.
The Nasi youth organization of United Russia borrowed phraseology, hymns and marches from the time of their fathers and mothers, who in their own youth had to display fiery Komsomol loyalty. Although last-minute opinion polls indicated that Putin’s popularity was well over 60 per cent and that his party would win hands down, the nervous energy invested in the campaign, the suppression of any opposition through the 7 per cent threshold for representation in the state Duma, the extreme entry requirements for admission to the election process, the ban on party alliances, the seizure of leaflets and posters by the police and many imaginative forms of harassment and, on top of everything else, an almost Soviet-style pressure on people not only to go to the voting booth but also to place their mark of approval in the right spot – all this betrayed great nervousness over the real state of affairs and opinion throughout the country. The Kremlin does not trust the Russian people.
To the sound of militant boasting and aggressive rhetoric the police showed an old-style heavy-handedness in controlling the opposition. On 21 November 2007 Garry Kasparov, the former chess world champion, a hero throughout the chess-obsessed Russian lands and, to his credit, leader of the opposition coalition Other Russia, was taken into custody for allegedly organizing, without previous written permission, a demonstration – not such an outrageous thing to do in an election campaign. What he had received from the local authorities was indeed permission to stage a demonstration – though not a march, and certainly not in the direction of the official commission appointed to supervise the flawless progress of the election. Kasparov, world famous, good-looking and a man of conscience, was immediately sentenced to no less than five days in prison, while the damage to Putin’s and indeed Russia’s reputation in the West was taking on remarkable proportions. Someone on the militia level exceeded their authority, or followed orders from above which did more harm than good.
Throughout the campaign the powers that be did not bother to discuss the arguments of the opposition but simply ignored them or, even worse, denounced them as being an expression of the ‘fifth column’, siding with the enemy. Putin spoke of shakals, the hungry wild dogs of the desert, and accused the liberals of making common cause with foreigners out to destroy Russia and working against the motherland. There was no group strong enough, and outspoken enough, to really take up the challenge from the Kremlin and its auxiliary troops in United Russia. Electioneering was blended with traditional Russian xenophobia. National unity was the order of the day. High prices for milk and bread? Inflation? Corruption, soaring rents and housing prices? The election was a festival of problem avoidance.
We need no opposition
A whiff of ‘Who is not for us is against us’ was in the air. Friend or foe. There was not much of a third way open to Russian voters. In their despair some of the opposition parties advised protest voters to cast their lot with the communists so that United Russia would at least fail to attain the two-thirds majority. Some in the opposition argued for a ‘Russian Pinochet’ to save the country from its enemies, weakness and treason. Nationalist hysteria was whipped up and it will stay with Russia and the Russians for a long time to come, even when the excitement of the elections has been forgotten.
Many Russians, long before the election results were announced to confirm the not unexpected triumphal victory of the party of power (64.4 per cent of the popular vote, rounded up to almost 70 per cent when the lesser parties were counted out), made it clear that they thought the charade was not worth bothering to go to the polls. Admirable was the courage of those bloggers who denounced the window-dressing as well as the police brutality, admirable also the willingness to conduct serious debate in cafés and restaurants, and even on private television. But for the common man or woman, fearing for their job or promotion or the kids’ scholarship, the base line was more or less: they pretend to play democracy, and we pretend to take them seriously. It must also be added that many voters were sick and tired of instability, that their idea of democracy and liberalism was formed in the Yeltsin years and associated with turmoil, uncertainty, loss of status, vast riches for the few and poverty for the masses. Putin was associated with a return to stability, rising wages, pensions paid and a brighter outlook in life for many. People would still complain about steeply rising prices for groceries, milk and bread. But a vote for Zuganov’s dead-end communists or Zhirinovsky’s ill-named Liberal Democrats? For those – who would like to promote a more Western, pluralist style of politics – estimates put them at 20 per cent of the electorate, many of them young urban professionals – the SPS and Yabloko offered a losing proposition. Having failed to merge their fortunes in time and unite, they were sure to falter at the 7 per cent threshold and would therefore punch below their weight, which in due course they did.
The campaign for the election of the lower house of the state Duma, once it got under way, was clearly conceived, organized and stage-managed as a hybrid between parliamentary elections and a referendum to keep Putin, whatever his official position, in control. Putin was, right from the start, the central figure. But in what capacity? Voters received little detailed information throughout. The fact that ahead of the elections he designated himself as the party leader of United Russia, while at the same time putting much emphasis on his being above party, left many, in fact all, options open. Even if, towards the end of his second presidential term, he really and truly entertained the idea of withdrawing from public office, this uncertainty did not last long. In the meantime the balance of power in and around the Kremlin, impenetrable though it is between the various intelligence services, the power ministries, the United Russia coalition of oligarchs, and the state bureaucracy, seems to have changed so much and become so precarious that looming danger to the regime must have persuaded him not to give up the role of leader and supreme arbiter. At present and for the foreseeable future, no one but Putin can claim the throne of the overall powerbroker, command respect and keep the peace between the warring factions.
The national leader
The parliamentary election turned referendum on Putin, whatever the masterplan behind it, hinted at a solution to the riddle of who would be the future master of Russia. United Russia chairman Boris Gryzlov was the first to announce that in reality the elections for the 450 members of the state Duma would be a referendum for Putin. All of a sudden, the Russian parliamentary election was a kind of US-style primary. This in turn opened the way to interpret victory for United Russia as a mandate from the people to be creative with the constitution. Even before the election had ended its results were seen as an appeal for a popular campaign to beseech the man in the Kremlin to stay and to add, through a two-thirds majority for United Russia and its loyalists, a little amendment to the constitution in order to allow Putin a third term. Forever the saviour of the nation.