#7
Novoye Vremya
No. 1-2
January 6, 2002
VOTING RIGHTS FOR GOOD YEOMEN
The trends in Russia's voting patterns and preferences
Author: not indicated
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
AN INTERVIEW WITH DMITRY ORESHKIN, HEAD OF THE MERKATOR RESEARCH CENTER AT THE GEOGRAPHY INSTITUTE OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. HE DISCUSSES RUSSIA'S POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE SO-CALLED "RED BELT" OF PRO-COMMUNIST REGIONS, AND CONTROLLABLE ELECTIONS.
Question: You have commented on all "significant" elections. Television viewers usually see you with a map of Russia in the background, which is painted different colors depending on political preferences of the regional residents. Did you coin the term "red belt"?
Dmitry Oreshkin: It is sad to see the "red belt" term being modified. At first, it was the area to the south of Moscow: the Kursk, Penza, Lipetsk, Orel, Bryansk, Voronezh, and Belgorod regions - all red. Another traditionally communist area was the Baikal region; also the Chita and Amur regions, and the neighboring autonomous republics. Then, more communist supporters appeared in the south of Western Siberia: the Novosibirsk region, the Kemerovo region, where coalminers had been very pro-democratic at first, but after certain events they turned pro-left. So at present the majority of Russians, including the south of Siberia and the European part of Russia, are very conservative. Now, the term "red belt" is so wide that it is senseless to use it, as it means nothing.
Question: Do you mean the political map has radically changed?
Oreshkin: I would say it is not the map that changed, but its perception. At present I am mostly interested in the map of election freedoms. There are regions where people vote in accordance with European style: they vote for Mr. A or Mr. B depending on what he promises, whether they like him or not. But there are also regions where all the residents unanimously support Mr. A only because the local authorities support him.
Here is my favorite example: at the regional presidential elections in the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria there was only one candidacy - of incumbent President Valery Kokov. Overall, voter turnout in that republic was 97.7%, and 99.4% of them voted for Valery Kokov.
Question: Are no-alternative elections possible in Russia?
Oreshkin: Well, as you see, they are, though all this violates the federal constitution.
Question: But there was no scandal....
Oreshkin: There was not, all was quiet. And what do you think of the victory of Murtaza Rakhimov in Bashkortostan despite the special decision of the Supreme Court of Russia that withdrawal of his two leading rivals from the elections was illegal? It is very indicative for that time, as the main things was who Bashkortostan would support during the federal elections. For some time Bashkortostan supported Gennady Zyuganov, however, after Rakhimov decided that Zyuganov was the wrong person to support (no matter what the residents of the republic thought), he turned to Luzhkov and supported him as ardently as he had supported Zyuganov before. In fact, it was a realization of the toughly controlled election scenario.
Question: What do you mean when you say "toughly controlled elections", "there is no alternative"? Do you mean that people have no alternatives in their minds or that the elections are in fact falsified?
Oreshkin: Actually, I mean both. Falsification is a judicially term, and I must give evidence that the elections are falsified. However, this is not my work, I only analyze statistics. And statistics cannot say whether the elections were falsified or not. On the other hand, the statistics can say with 0.999 probability that the event in question could not have been diverted by chance - there was some purposed impact. I cannot say what kind of influence it was: there might be extra bulletins or people might love their leaders so much, as in example with Kokov.
Obviously, it cannot happen in reality that 98% of voters come to the election polls. So I call all regions where there is unanimity, high attendance, monolith voting, controllable.
Question: What is this "Election freedom" map on the wall?
Oreshkin: We call it politely - the map of electoral culture. Look, the most notable are: Dagestan, the North Caucasus overall, Kalmykia, Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, the Komi-Perm Autonomous district, the whole North, Tuva, Buriatia, the Chita region. As a rule the most controllable are autonomous republics. Of course, objectively they differ from one another, but they all are reputed for too high attendance, too monolithic character of elections, for too high number of invalid bulletins. As is known, a large number of invalid bulletins is an indirect sign of their previous adaptation - which means falsification is highly likely. In any case, these are not free elections.
I do not want to say that in all the other regions the elections are not ruled and are absolutely democratic. They are ruled by means of the media. In these terms it is possible to say that the elections in Russia are controlled by means of different methods: European-like (through the media) and Asian-like (when the authorities simply explain to people who to vote for).
Question: Zyuganov always mentioned Dagestan as an example of falsified elections. What is the outcome of the story?
Oreshkin: This story brightly characterizes the political culture of the society. Neither Zyuganov not the victors of the elections are interested in bringing the story to the end. It is still the Soviet logic: the elites are bargaining and secretly agree: we have evidence that several hundred thousands votes were falsified in the regional presidential elections; however, the general victory, for instance the victory of Vladimir Putin at the presidential elections, is undoubted. Consequently even if the Communists have evidence that the elections were falsified, it may receive either PR means or an image of a shallow loudmouth. As a result, they consider it tactically more profitable to have compromising materials on the ineffective election system and President Putin in order to use it in the behind-the- curtain bargaining.
It is also very easy to collect compromising materials on the Communist Party in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan that supported them. Thus, the situation mutually reflects the real balance of forces in the elites. Elections are an honest mirror of the condition of the society.
Question: Speaking about the latest regional elections of Putin's period, is there anything outstanding?
Oreshkin: The elections are more real now. You may believe it or not, but for the first time the competition is serious in republics of the Russian Federation. Before, the rivals were the president of the republic and some absolutely obvious artificial alternative in the form of deputy fishery and hunting minister. Another question is that present fights are still not signs of civil society, as the rivals are various elite groupings. However, the fights are rather serious: in the Komi republic, in Karelia; in Dagestan the fight turns into a war - thanks God the leader is not elected there but appointed by the State Council of the republic. If there were direct elections, there would be firing in the republic.
Cynically, but it is doubtful whether electoral democracy is a good thing for all territories. If there were real democracy in some places, this would immediately cause inter-clan collisions. I mean there are still people who live in some different political spaces. From my experience I know that democracy is the blessing that must be deserved. In Russia it is an imported blessing: many territories are ready to perceive it, but many are not.
Question: Did establishment of federal districts influence the election model somehow?
Oreshkin: Yes, the regional elections became more severe. Another peculiarity is that the elections are very tough now as they are divided into very big money and political influence. It is closely connected to the third peculiarity: appearance of tycoons on the regional level. They were suppressed on the federal level: they all moved to regions, and now some are elected as leaders there, others are promoting their people to the regional power. Graphic examples are Evenkia, where there are only 13,000 of voters and it is easy to contact almost everyone; Koryakia, Chukotka, where there are only a dozen thousand voters in each.
LUKoil oil company is very actively and successfully participates in regional elections; moreover it does not care of the color of the candidate at all. The company needs places with oil - it is a purposed corporative strategy: it is necessary to control the largest regions to support it business. And the elections are the means to lobby its interests. It is very sad, as the voters are at best invited to stamp the results of the agreement between tycoons' structures. On the other hand, there is a positive thing as well: at least they need to address the electorate, while before no one had remembered about the people at all.
Question: Not a very encouraging progress.
Oreshkin: The issue is that the development of regions is very different and we, the advanced city residents are concerned about the absence of bourgeois rights and freedoms. While the matter is that Moscow is a post-industrial society and it compares itself with London and Paris, while Udmurtia is solving qualitatively different issues.
Question: Currently, speaking about regional elections, they mention electoral technologies more than the candidates.
Oreshkin: Electoral technologies are good and bad: the regional authorities have learned electoral techniques and are not afraid of the elections any longer. At first, the elections raised panic in the authorities: some voters, who you do not know, despise and do not understand must decide your fate. Now all is clear again: you need to invest some money, some influence, some control of the media, you need to get rid of the rivals and you have all you need. The voters, especially the advanced ones, are awfully disappointed as they realize that their opinion hardly means anything. As a result, they are unwilling to vote at all. We are still uninterested in democracy.
Finally, the tycoons have their own interest in the elections, and they are realizing them. They say in the West that people vote with their wallets; in Russia people still vote with their hearts: today they like Zhirinovsky, tomorrow they will like Putin, but money has nothing to do with this, consequently, the majority of voters have nothing to lose in the elections. Paradoxically, the better people will live, the more popular the left parties will be. It is generally believed that the middle class will support the right - I believe they will support the left, as the proprietor's psychology has not formed in Russia yet.
Question: Does that mean that the Russian elite will turn to Zyuganov?
Oreshkin: The elite has rejected the Communist ideals for good. It needs a state capitalistic development scenario, which would allow them earn big money and live to their pleasure. Nonetheless, Zyuganov's electorate has not reduced, but even slightly increased. Now, no the easy-to-rule provinces support him, but city residents: disappointed teachers, doctors, the military, who do not want the communist system to restore but hope that Zyuganov would suggest a social-democratic alternative. In these terms, present situation of the communist party is very interesting: the intelligent communists realize it is necessary to re-orient, but the majority is unwilling to reject their classical rhetoric.
At the same time the right are currently too busy with competing with one another: a small part of them are in the Duma, while the rest are making money and do not attend elections. They will go to vote only when they feel an obvious restoration threat.
Question: What is our party of power? Are their any foreign analogues of this, or is it a Russian invention?
Oreshkin: Our parties of power is a distanced analogue of Latin American Juntas, very distances - there the Junta is also connected with business, but the technique of capturing the authority is different: the military take the responsibility of the coup d'etat and forming the new elite. While we use the elections for this.
If think about historical examples, we can recollect the War of the Red and White Roses. They also called themselves parties, though in fact, they were feudal groupings that fought for exerting influence at court. Here is the same: peasants are staring at knights breaking each other's necks. At the same time, peasants develop in good yeomen, if use English terms. So we are these yeomen.
(Translated by Arina Yevtikhova)
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