#6063
[Second Issue of the Day]
#13
From
From: Ben Aris <benaris@online.ru>
Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2002 11:39:58 +0300
Subject: [RusBizList] RBL266
Russia Business List
#266
Thursday, February 7, 2002
DEMOCRATIC GAINS REVERSED IN REGIONAL ELECTIONS FROM
MOSCOW TO SAKHA EAST WEST INSTITUTE
by Vladimir Gelman, European University, St. Petersburg
Many journalists and analysts have noted the undemocratic character of recent elections in a number of Russian regions. Often they are talking about different things: from dirty tricks employed during the course of the campaign to the advantages of incumbency, which allows office-holders to buy off or pressure voters. But if we are discussing democracy as a competition of elites in elections, then the sole measure for the level of democracy is whether elections are the only mechanism for replacing the authorities. If elections do not threaten the incumbent with a loss of power or the elections simply serve to legitimize other ways to replace the authorities, then elections do not play a role as democratic institutions. By this measure democracy is losing ground in Russia. Examples can be found in several recent races where incumbents were able to name their successors: President Yeltsin at the federal level, and Krasnodar's Nikolai Kondratenko and Primorskii Krai's Yevgenii Nazdratenko at the regional level.
The recent Moscow City Duma and Sakha presidential elections further demonstrate these alarming tendencies in Russia's electoral processes. In both cases the elections were not a means of political competition. The results were known in advance and were achieved not as a result of voter preferences, but regardless of them.
In Sakha, as earlier in Kursk, the courts played an active role in removing candidates from the field even before election day. Other candidates were forced to resign from the race. Thus, incumbent Mikhail Nikolaev terminated his bid for a third term after meeting with Putin in the Kremlin and threw his support behind Alrosa President Vladimir Shtyrov, who went on to win. Deputy Procurator General Vasilii Kolmogorov also withdrew from the race as a result of this deal.
In the Moscow City Duma elections, four parties, Otechestvo, Yedinstvo, Soyuz pravykh sil (SPS), and Yabloko, signed a cartel agreement dividing the electoral field between them. Such coalition agreements among parties about mutual support for each other's candidates are widespread in Russian elections. But in Moscow such an agreement achieved almost absolute success since the slate of candidates won 33 of 35 seats. There was no real alternative to the city's party of power represented in the elections. In contrast to the 1997 and 1999 elections, when first Yabloko, and then SPS opposed Mayor Yurii Luzhkov, these parties joined the winning coalition in order to secure their share of the seats (four and six, respectively) in exchange for loyalty to the authorities.
In both Sakha and Moscow, the deals did not inspire enthusiasm among the voters and turnout was relatively low. The problem here was not the use of negative campaign tactics or the powers of incumbency, but the lack of competition among candidates for votes. While the first regional elections held in the early 1990s were an important step on the path to democratizing political life in the regions, in the beginning of this decade we are witnessing movement in the other direction, a "de-democratization" of Russian political life. The formal elections are nothing more than a smoke screen for uncompetitive voting, hiding the informal practice in which leaders are simply appointed, as happened during the Soviet era. Such elections will not bring to power politicians who are responsive to the voters.
This development follows the logic of the federal government's policies toward the regions during 2001. Having failed to win the election of Kremlin-backed candidates in several key regions (particularly Primorskii Krai and Nizhnii Novgorod), the federal government has apparently decided to stop using elections as a means for obtaining a loyal regional elite. Instead it has adopted a number of other policies, such as the infamous amendment allowing the majority of current governors to seek a third, and in some cases, a fourth term, and refusing to pursue a plan requiring regional legislatures to elect half of their members on the basis of party lists (a reform aimed at reducing gubernatorial control over regional legislatures).
As in the 1990s, the Kremlin is seeking to conclude informal contracts with the regional elites. The difference is that in contrast to the previous arrangement between the Center and the regional elite exchanging "loyalty for non-interference" the new bargain is "loyalty for agreeing not to compete." Such a deal is particularly important for the Kremlin on the eve of the national legislative and presidential elections set for 2003 and 2004. In those elections the Kremlin will need the support of a loyal regional elite to deliver the votes for the election of a conciliatory State Duma and another term for Putin. It is not clear that any regional groups will be able to block this retreat from democratic practices.
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