Sunday March 2 2008
MOSCOW – There was precious little evidence of enthusiasm for the Russian presidential elections today in Moscow.
A cold day that dawned to a steady drizzle of wet snow that soon turned to rain, there was no apparent rush for the polling stations in an election that is more Czarist-style succession than democratic choice.
Dubbed the “dreary” election by many Western journalists – as Luke Harding of The Guardian was quoted by yesterday’s Moscow Times – Russians seem to share that view.
A straw poll of Russian acquaintances from a wide social spectrum today elicited not one Medvedev voter. Most were not going to vote at all. One, an educated English-speaking man in his 50s, spoke for many when he remarked acidly: “They really think we are going to going along and legitimize something that has already been long decided?”
Another, less well educated but nonetheless a shrewd and affable man, said he would far rather have a few beers and relax with friends but since his wife worked for the local administration the entire family had been mobilized to vote. Such is choice in today’s Russia.
Even this evening's election broadcasts on the state channels have an air of forced interest about them. A live broadcast just after 10pm tonight showed the reporter doing a stand-up from the Central Elections Commission hq in Moscow with all the enthusiasm of a Christmas pantomime star in mid January.
Mr Medvedev’s results are coming in right on target – 65%-70% across Russia’s regions, making his landslide victory the most one-sided in the country’s post-Soviet history.
Russia’s opposition coalition, The Other Russia, headed by former chess grandmaster turned political activist, Garry Kasparov, is urging world leaders to send Mr Medvedev to Coventry and refuse to congratulate him on the heavily massaged victory being delivered tonight.
Yesterday Mr Kasparov dubbed the elections a “farce” as he delivered a 5,500 name protest petition to the body overseeing today’s vote, the central election commission.
“The world should not recognize the election results. This election is the imposition of Putin’s successor. It is one hand-picked candidate replacing another.
“If the leaders of the free world accept Medvedev they will be approving and giving credibility to this farce,” he told the crowds of foreign reporters and news crews that turned up to witness the event.
He added that he feared a violent crackdown on an unsanctioned “dissenters march” planned in Moscow tomorrow.
There were few signs of dissent in Moscow this evening when I spent an hour or so strolling through the tipping rain on a route that took me past four different polling stations before I reached Red Square, where young pro-Kremlin kids from Molodaya Rossiya (Young Russia) hung forlornly about with flags and leaflets getting sodden as a van with speakers attached blared out bad Russian pop music.
But close inspection of election poster, contained within an illuminated advertising hoarding box near Okhotny Ryad metro station, just across the road from the Kremlin, offered some hope.
Stuck to the glass were stickers advertising tomorrow’s officially banned dissenters march in Moscow and a picture of a goat with the slogan: “This goat is our candidate! Is our goat any worse than the others?”
Perhaps the country has come full circle – and has returned as a Soviet simulacrum? It’s worse, said one Russian acquaintance today. Back in the old days the General Secretary of the Party ran everything. Sure he had access to nice government cars and dachas, but essentially he was no better off than anyone else. Today the new Politburo chiefs run everything and enjoy vast private wealth too. “It is definitely worse today than in the old days,” he declared gloomily.
Readers of the western press could be forgiven for sometimes thinking that the vast majority of Russians are dupes of this new so-called managed democracy.
From my experience, Russians are very critical but both understand that there is little they can do against such a monolithic and powerful system and also deeply feel that stability is more important right now than upsetting the apple cart.
Here’s what a neighbour’s mother told me:
….On eve of a poll that many Russians have described as the most boring – because predictable – since Soviet times, Nina Nikolaievna last night had still not made up her mind who she would vote for today.
“It’s a choice between Zyuganov and Medvedev but I won’t decide until I have the ballot paper in my hand,” the 68 year old Moscow physics teacher said.
A former member of the Soviet Communist Party - she still has her old party card – and a teacher with 45 years service behind her, Nina believes firmly in a great future for Russia.
“This is a rich country. We have many talented people. We sincerely hope and wish that Russia will reach the top intellectually and economically,” she declaimed as she stood in the “podyezd” communal stairwell outside her daughter’s apartment in a central Moscow apartment .
She laughed when told she should run for president herself with such a knack for political sound-bites.
But despite the image of political apathy, like many Russians Nina is critical of the country Vladimir Putin is passing over to Dmitry Medvedev today.
“Russia has many problems today and the country has lost a lot, particularly with regard to the upbringing of children. We’ve lost the entire system we had for years – the youth groups and activities,” she said.
Education and health services operated in a grey free-market with quality services available only to those able and willing to pay. Economic growth was restricted to Russia and a few other large cities while many of the new jobs were unskilled.
But she conceded that life today was certainly better than the 1990s – a time of hyper-inflation, mafia turf wars, rampant corruption and financial collapse that many shudder to recall.
“Teachers in Moscow earn twice more than those outside the capital – an average of 20,000 roubles (UK Pounds 400) a month – but that’s thanks to our Mayor, Yuri Luzhkov.”
Unwilling to give Mr Putin much, if any, credit for restoring Russia’s economic and geopolitical status, Nina softened when talking about Mr Medvedev.
“He’s young, cultured, active and works hard. We could do with more open political debate about who our next president may be – but at least we have stability which is the main thing in Russia today,” she said as two of her granddaughters emerged from the apartment behind her go outside to play on one of the first bright afternoons in Moscow for weeks.
Finally, for the record I'm noting below the opposition field that Mr Medvedev was running against today – a pretty dour bunch.
I’ll wrap today’s blog with an entertaining interview I took with the outsider, Andrei Bogdanov, some weeks back. The piece was intended for publication elsewhere but sadly ended up being spiked.
And then I’ll provide a link for the story that did run in today’s Sunday Telegraph – mostly about the influence Svetlana Medvedeva, Russia’s First Lady in waiting, seems to have on her husband, the new president elect Dmitry Medvedev.
Here's the opposition field:
…..MOSCOW - Small but vocal anti-Kremlin coalition The Other Russia plan post-election protest marches tomorrow in Moscow, St Petersburg and other cities across the country.
A loosely knit group that brings together figures that include eccentric writer and National Bolshevik leader Eduard Limonov and Soviet-era dissident Vladimir Bukovksy under the leadership of chess grandmaster turned political activist Garry Kasparov, the ‘dissenters’ actions face a riot police crackdown in Moscow, where the march has been banned.
Mr Kasparov, who was beaten and arrested during a similar unsanctioned protest in Moscow on the eve of last December’s parliamentary elections, says that won’t deter activists who have dubbed the presidential elections a “farce” and Dmitry Medvedev as “false Dmitry” – a reference to a 17th century pretender to the Czar’s throne.
The opposition coalition also plans to set up an alternative parliament, called the National Assembly, which they will use as a base for continuing to criticize the Kremlin.
The brainchild of President Vladimir Putin’s former economic advisor Andrei Illarionov, it’s first session is due to take place late March.
Opposition claims that today’s presidential elections are merely a lavish rubber stamping for a pre-approved transfer of power are given weight by the flimsy opposition candidates the Kremlin allowed to be registered.
The only serious contender is Communist leader Gennady Zyganov, a 63 year old former physics teacher who can expect 15-20% of the vote.
Jew-baiting nationalist, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, 61, head of the ill-named Liberal
Democratic Party of Russia, is a Kremlin-loyalist whose job is to take second place to Mr Zyganov, He can expect some 10% of the votes.
Rank outsider and Russia’s most bizarre presidential candidate is Andrei Bogdanov, a 38 year old professional politician who has never held high public office but doubles as the grand master of Russia’s Masonic lodge.
Head of the Democractic Party of Russia, the father of three is campaigning on a ticket that includes Russian membership of the European Union and NATO. He is likely to poll less than 2%.
Dismissed as a job by most political observers, Mr Bogdanov denies that he is the Kremlin’s “insurance candidate” – designed to legitimize elections that demand at least two candidates lest Mr Zyuganov and Mr Zhirinovsky try to gain political advantage by pulling out.
Dmitry Medvedev, President Putin’s anointed successor, is a 42 year old St Petersburg-educated lawyer and chairman of Gazprom, Russia’s state-run natural gas giant.
Putting himself above the political fray, Mr Medvedev refused to campaign or debate his opponents.
Seen as Putin’s puppet, he had recently adopted many of his predecessor’s mannerisms and also lashed out at the British Council as a “nest of spies.”
But he has also said he will return press freedom to Russia, crack down on corruption and create a modern transport infrastructure.
He is expected to win between 60-65% of the vote.
And now here is some more on the bizarre Mr Bogdanov:
MOSCOW - He has never held high publicly elected office, he is pro-European Union membership, is the grand master of his country’s Masonic lodge, his party scored just 0.1% of the vote at the last elections and he cheerfully admits he does not have a hope of winning the next.
Meet Andrei Bogdanov – Vladimir Putin’s insurance policy for legally legitimate presidential elections.
Mr Bogdanov, a 38 year old father of three of mixed Russian-Crimean Tatar descent, has spent the past 15 years working as a ‘political consultant’ and with the Democratic Party of Russia.
He saw off a challenge for the obscure party’s leadership last year from former prime minister turned Putin critic Mikhail Kasyanov – who went to the same Moscow secondary school as Mr Bogdanov and claims he stands to win up to 15% of the popular vote when he runs against Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s anointed successor.
Mr Medvedev is expected to win a landslide victory in a country where both the Kremlin and the population at large fear any change of political course could be disastrous.
Mr Bogdanov dismisses notions he is an insurance candidate to ensure at least two contenders run in the election as the Russian constitution demands, saying the Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the flamboyant head of nationalists LDPR, performs that role perfectly well.
But observers say without Mr Bogdanov the Kremlin fears that Zhirinovsky and Communist leader Gennady Zuganov could exert powerful leverage by threatening to both pull out of the election unless they were given key political concessions.
“The role of Bogdanov in this election is very important. By law there must be at least two candidates,” said Nikolai Petrov, of Moscow’s Carnegie Centre think tank.
“If the only opposition parties are the LDPR and the Communists they could blackmail the Kremlin by dropping out of the elections and not taking part. In order to ensure the elections take place the Kremlin registered Bogdanov.”
It also helps explain why the Kremlin dismissed ex prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov’s bid to run against Medvedev – claiming he had forged thousands of signatures out of the two million required from supporters – but did not scrutinise Mr Bogdanov’s lists.
Andrei Kolesnikov, a Kremlin correspondent and columnist for Russian daily newspaper Kommersant agrees.
“Bogdanov looks like a joke. He is just a guarantee – an ordered opposition candidate.”
Mr Bogdanov dismisses these suggestions as nonsense, insisting that the flamboyant but obsequiously loyal Zhirinovsky is the insurance candidate.
“Zhirinovsky criticizes a lot and makes a lot of noise but always votes for the Kremlin line. Better insurance than Zhirinovsky I cannot imagine,” he says adding that with 15 years of party organization across Russia and experience of regional and national elections behind him, gathering two million signatures was “not a problem.”
Mr Bogdanov – who bullishly predicts he will attract a minimum of 3.5% - two million votes - with possibly as much as 10-15% - has been taking part in the televised election debates that Mr Medvedev has pointedly boycotted.
“We were the first anti-Communist party in Russia and have always been pro-democracy and pro-European Union. I remember the 1990s when many people laughed as Zhirinovksy – and then he went on to get 22% in a general election,” Mr Bogdanov said.
But when pressed his assertive position soon crumbles.
“I shouldn’t really say this, but of course I don’t have a hope of becoming president,” he admitted.
And here is the link to the Sunday Telegraph story that ran today: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/01/wrussia101.xml
