In the mere twenty-five days that have passed since the controversial Duma Elections in Russia events have moved quickly. The elections were held on December 4, and the announcement of the results the following day spawned flash protests of around 6,000 on the streets of Moscow on the 6 and 7 December. A more organised march on 10 December brought 40,000 to the streets. while on 24 December estimates suggest 80,000 people took to the streets of Moscow (Christmas is thirteen days later in Russia, according to the Julian Calendar).
There is every chance that these protests could multiply week on week, but that would take a sustained level of interest and a sense that results were achievable. The Presidential elections in March provide an obvious finish line for both the protestors and the establishment – if these go ahead relatively smoothly, Vladimir Putin will regain the Presidency, Hilary Clinton will desist poking her nose into things that don’t concern her, and the Russian people will go back to their slavish indifference to politics. On the other hand, if the elections fail to give Putin a mandate to govern, the result could be a democratic revolution, violency, or anarchy.
What are the Protesters Doing?
(An interesting look at who the protesters are, albeit taken in the heat of the moment)
It would seem helpful to summarise the events that have taken place largely off the front pages over the past few weeks, since they are of some importance. One of the striking features of these protests, just as was true of the Arab Spring, and indeed, many of the Velvet Revolutions of 1989, is that these are spontaneous and without leadership. An admirable amount of the protests have been organised online, to the extent that meetings of the organising committee are streamed and speakers selected for rallies by popular vote.
Meanwhile a number of the participants have become fodder for the media. The strongest voice is that of Alex Navalny, an anti-corruption blogger, whose fifteen day prison sentence for affray did him little damage with the masses. Navalny has the twin advantages of being anti-corruption out of principle and being unsullied by association with politics. He has resonated with the protesters, who, if they sometimes seem crude in their language, as Anne Applebaum points out, are merely reacting to their surroundings:
No wonder his thuggish style and occasionally vulgar language seem so perfectly in sync with the thuggish and vulgar society around him. No wonder they seem an appropriate response to Russia’s thuggish and vulgar leadership.
Then there are the darlings of the media, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Nemtsov (a Deputy PM under Yeltsin). Neither have huge credibility inside Russia, given the economic and social crises of the 1990s. They in many ways encapsulate the reasons Russians put up with Putin for so long.
Mikhail Prokhorov is the best hope for reformist in the forthcoming elections, unless Navalny should actually run and discover some influential backers. An oligarch, and owner of the New Jersey Nets, Prokhorov fell out with the Kremlin over interference in the political party he led for a short while, The Right Cause. Given that the other alternatives to Putin include the xenophobic Vladimir Zhirinovsky (whose party are ironically titled the Liberal Democrats), and the Communist General, Gennady Zyuganov, Prokhorov would be a favourable candidate in Western capitals, but is compromised by his wealth and former association with the Kremlin in ways that Navalny is not.
Then there is Alexei Kudrin, the former finance minster who can take much of the credit for rebuilding Russia’s (official) economy in the past decade. Kudrin left over a disagreement with Dmitry Medvedev (at its most reducible, the quarrel is over spending, with Medvedev accused of profligacy), but retains close links to Putin, making a return likely at some stage. Nonetheless, his speech in favour of immediate political reform was considered dynamite.
What is the Government Doing ?
While the establishment has not given the clear impression of panic, it has been wildly inconsistent in its reaction to the crisis of legitimacy. Putin has previously shown signs of recalcitrance at the idea of six more years in the Kremlin, and his contempt for the protesters is merely a symptom of his frustration with the country. The lame duck President, Dmitry Medvedev has striven to be all things to all people and has failed, a metaphor for the past four years if ever there was one. Mocking the protesters and condemning foreign provacateurs, while promising to tale ideas for political reform by mid-February (making changes before 4 March incredibly unlikely), Medvedev looks bereft of ideas and friends.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the raft of appointments over the past couple of weeks. Sergei Naryshkin, one of the Kremlin’s hands-on economic managers, is the new Chair of the Duma, to be replaced in the Presidential Administration by a siloviki, Sergei Ivanov.
The most interesting change is the reassignment of Vladislav Surkov, by far the most unusual character in European politics, to the Prime Ministerial office, where he will oversee political modernisation (in Russia, this would could mean anything from liberalisation to enhanced surveillance techniques). Surkov is a Mandelson par excellence, who even as he creates and destroys political parties, gives the impression that he is a force for pluralism. His bizarre interview last week, in which he warned that ‘the system’ had changed for ever, could be read as a plea for changes before the protests get out of hand. His verdict on his new post, that ‘stabilisation eats its own’ (not to mention his comment that he was too odious for the public eye), could as easily be taken seriously as it could be thoroughly discounted.
What Happens Next?
Levada poll: 25% of Russians support a revote for the Duma, but 56% oppose the dissolution of the new Duma.—
Kevin Rothrock (@agoodtreaty) December 30, 2011
The first signs of caution
The last few days suggest that personnel are critical to the continuation of the Putin regime. Institutional cliques are all well and good, but as the row between Britain and Germany over surviving Stasi files has revealed, some KGB agents were perfectly willing to sell names to the CIA. Reliable people matter, and to the extent that there are still people around that Putin can trust and has worked with, they will fill the key posts.
This leaves the option of brazening out the protests, in the hope that they can be bought off by slow-moving reforms. Unless the protests reach a critical mass, either because someone in the government makes a silly throwaway comment, or because the police go in heavy and a video of some poor student having his head bashed in goes whizzing round the Internet, many of the professional people currently protesting will be tempted to stand down.
Even so, the March elections present a dilemma. Cheat again and you risk inflaming the protests. Don’t cheat and you run the risk of losing your mandate, if not the election. This even presupposes that Putin can prevent party officials and local fixers from committing violations, although the few brave members of United Russia speaking up for due process are a refreshing indication of the party renewing itself.
One of the overlooked facts about the Duma elections is that they have brought a considerable amount of fresh blood into Russian politics. Should the protest movement translate into a coherent political party or greater activism on behalf of the various factions (left radicals, nationalists, liberal) that make up the movement, then future elections could lead to a very different political makeup.
Even if Putin is successful in winning the Presidency in March, with little accusation of fraud and a clear majority of the votes, it will be difficult to claim a mandate for doing nothing. Now that reforms are being openly discussed, and the media is openly reporting dissent, there is not only an incentive to introduce reforms but an expectation. Whether they carry through may be a question for another day.
