Groundhog Day a la Russe?
Boris Kagarlitsky
The Moscow Times, 10 December 2003
The 1999 election demonstrated that the ruling elite leaves nothing to chance or to democracy, which amounts to the same thing. The succession crisis that year revealed the extent to which a change of president causes problems for the entire ruling elite. After taking over the Kremlin with the backing of the Yeltsin-era family, the Putin team gradually began to force their predecessors out of key posts in politics and the economy. This is a slow process, however, and even in the best-case scenario the new oligarchs will just be coming into their own in 2007 and 2008. The closely controlled transfer of power in 1999 and 2000 ensured that the first wave of oligarchs enjoyed a lengthy grace period. But even that sort of grace won't be enough to help the second wave.
The only thing to do is to prevent another transfer of power - at least not in 2008, and by no means via the ballot box.
On Dec. 7, revision of the Constitution became inevitable because voters in Komi-Permyatsky and Perm approved a referendum on merging the two regions. Such a merger would require a Constitutional amendment.
United Russia and its new comrades have enough votes to amend the Constitution and extend the presidential term or remove the limit on the number of terms a president may serve. If all goes as planned, Vladimir Putin will become president in 2008. And in 2015 as well.
We are witnessing the progression from "managed democracy" to an authoritarian regime with a democratic facade. The Communist Party, which provided the ideal opposition in the old system, must be replaced with a new lapdog opposition. The Rodina bloc fits the bill. It has no organization to speak of, and its political viability will last only so long as its leaders are allowed to appear on state television.
The liberal parties called for capitalism and bourgeois democracy, but unfortunately the two only go together in wealthy countries. In a country where 80 percent of the population is shut out of consumer society and living in poverty, democracy inevitably turns into an attack on private property.
Is there a future for political opposition in Russia? Yabloko is no longer in parliament, and the Communist Party has lost forever the conservative, nationalist voter, who has gone over to Rodina, LDPR and United Russia. The Communists' notion of a "red-white union" is no longer viable. Internecine squabbles within the party are heating up.
The Kremlin's main goal in Sunday's election was to eliminate parliamentary opposition as a political institution. In this it was successful, though the downfall of the Communist Party and Yabloko could give rise to a new, non-parliamentary radical political resistance and a new left. The widespread refusal to vote speaks for itself. We did not stay home because we're lazy; I say this as someone who has avoided taking part in our farcical electoral process for a decade now. We vote with our feet. And this is the last democratic right that hasn't been taken away from us.
Candidate "none of the above" is already raking in 20 to 25 percent of the vote in the single-mandate districts. This is also a symptom of the changing political reality. There is no point in trying to build a political campaign on this discontent, however. People who don't vote will not unite without a positive ideology.
The new opposition will arise not from parliamentary intrigues and petty politicking. It will only emerge when we refuse to play by the rules imposed on us by the current system. Sooner or later democratic longings will fuse with social protest. The finale will be extremely interesting. But how long will this take?
At a meeting held by the Georgian opposition last month, one speaker remarked that he had been 6 years old when Shevardnadze took power in the republic. Now his own daughter was 6, and he didn't want her to grow up as he had under Shevardnadze's thumb.
I'm reminded of the movie "Groundhog Day", whose hero wakes up every morning to find himself reliving the day before. But who needs images from Hollywood. My generation still remembers the stability of the Brezhnev era. And my daughter is also 6, by the way.
Copyright 2003 The Moscow Times
|
