Russia’s “managed” democracy
Vladimir Putin has been in power since 2000, and if he wins next year’s presidential election he will remain in power until 2024 Can Russia be called a democracy?
In theory it has been a constitutional democracy since 1993, when a new constitution to replace the Soviet-era one was approved, by a 54.5% majority, in a referendum. Introduced by President Boris Yeltsin, who had triumphed in the election held after the Soviet Union fell in 1991, it provided for a president elected every four years (every six years since 2012), an elected parliament (the Duma), a free press and an independent judiciary (see box). But much of it was framed with a view to consolidating Yeltsin’s power in his bitter struggle with the legislature, and the democracy it ushered in was fatally flawed from the start.
How was it flawed?
To stay in power, Yeltsin relied heavily on the oligarchs who had bought state businesses at knockdown prices, and who largely controlled the media. It was they who backed his 1996 re-election campaign and helped prevent nearcertain defeat at the hands of the Communist party. And from Yeltsin’s time on, Russia has been a “managed democracy” rather than a full-blown authoritarian state: regular elections are held, but the ruling regime does all it can to pre-determine the outcome. It has become ever more “managed” under Vladimir Putin, Yeltsin’s chosen successor, who became president in 2000.
How has Putin exerted control?
From the start he exercised a far greater degree of political oversight than Yeltsin, bringing TV channels and several newspapers under state control. Though the print media and internet have been allowed some freedom, the police, security services and courts have been used to stifle dissent, and many journalists, independent-minded oligarchs and other regime critics have been threatened, jailed or killed. Murder victims include former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and the opposition politician Sergei Yushenkov (gunned down outside his Moscow home in 2003). In 2015, former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov was shot four times in the back while strolling across a bridge near the Kremlin with his girlfriend.
And how successfully has Putin “managed” democracy?
By and large, very successfully; he is genuinely very popular. After the gangster capitalism and economic collapse of the Yeltsin years, Putin offered an unspoken “social contract”: stability and relative prosperity in return for less democracy. That has involved sweeping changes to the political system: opposition parties, which must now be approved by the justice ministry, have been vastly thinned out. “Political technology,” which involves manipulating the media and directing both supportive nationalist movements and fake opposition parties, has been used to guide the electoral process. Putin has, though, sometimes misjudged things.
How so?
In 2011-12, growing anger at blatant voter fraud in the Duma elections – compliant voters were bussed between several polling stations, ballot boxes were stuffed – was exacerbated by Putin’s “castling” manoeuvre. To sidestep the constitutional ban on a president serving more than two terms, he had swapped jobs with prime minister Dmitry Medvedev in 2008, then swapped back in 2012 to become president. This prompted the largest protests seen in Russia since the 1990s. Shortly after, it was made illegal to protest in public without an (often denied) official permit.
Is there a real opposition now?
There are only three significant parties in the Duma to take on Putin’s United Russia (which has 341 out of 450 seats): the Communists; the socialist A Just Russia; and the far-right Liberal Democratic party. But all three are largely loyal to the Kremlin. However, ahead of the presidential election next March, public protest is again beginning to swell. In two nationwide demonstrations against corruption this year, riot police arrested 1,000 people in Moscow alone. Alexei Navalny, an intrepid anti-corruption activist, sparked the protests by releasing a video detailing the $1bn personal wealth (including vast estates, two yachts and a vineyard) of Medvedev.
What are Navalny’s policies?
He’s no liberal. A nationalist populist with a history of inflammatory anti-immigrant statements, he wants to reduce the vast gulf that has grown between Russia’s citizens and its politicians. Aware that Putin’s aggressive foreign policy is very popular, he focuses instead on domestic failures: Russia went into recession in 2014, thanks to sanctions imposed after the annexing of Crimea and plummeting oil prices. A recent report claims some 23 million people live in poverty, and 41% struggle to feed and clothe themselves. “We will raise pensions and minimum wages here, before we support Assad’s regime,” Navalny tells supporters. Many are surprised he hasn’t yet been killed – suggesting he might be a Kremlin plant – though he has twice been prosecuted (on charges widely seen as rigged) for embezzlement. This year he has served two short terms for breaking protest laws, and has twice been attacked with a concentrated antiseptic which dyed his face green.
Does Navalny have any chance of winning?
His first challenge will be getting on the ballot: the rules say independent candidates need 315,000 signatures to run. Like many others, he’s been barred before on grounds of his criminal record. He’s also banned from state TV. Government officials refuse to use his name. The independent Levada-center polling institute thinks only 47% of Russians even know who he is, whereas Putin has an approval rating of 83%, even though 67% hold him personally responsible for high-level corruption. But young Russians, who increasingly turn to online media for information rather than state-controlled TV, are now more exposed to voices of dissent, and Navalny is still confident the regime will eventually fall. “By refusing to allow any genuine political competition,” he says, “Putin is doing all he can to ensure that he will be forced out by other means.”