#9 - JRL 7273
Novaya Gazeta
July 31, 2003
IGOR BUNIN: THE PATH TO POLITICS IS CLOSED FOR THE
TYCOONS
An interview with Igor Bunin, head of the Political Techniques Center
Author: Liudmila Stoliarenko
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
ACTS OF GOD ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO FORESEE. THE LAST DUMA ELECTION CAMPAIGN INCLUDED SOME OF THOSE. THE CURRENT CAMPAIGN APPEARS TO HAVE ONE TOO. THE ATTACK ON YUKOS, ORIGINALLY UNRELATED TO THE ELECTION, COULD EVENTUALLY AFFECT THE PRESIDENT'S POPULARITY RATING, EVEN IF IN THE REMOTE FUTURE.
Igor Mikhailovich Bunin, director general of the Political Techniques Center, shares his considerations about the situation in the election arena.
Question: The last three Duma election campaigns have been quite dramatic: something unpredictable occurred in each of them. What about this time?
Igor Bunin: Acts of God are impossible to foresee. The issue of a successor to Putin is not on the agenda presently. Even a second round of voting in the presidential election is hard to picture. No one can or wants to be at war against Putin: all parties are just looking for the distance or on the contrary, trying to approach the president. Perhaps, only the communists try to oppose.
This is also related to the type of voter. Most voters are content with a certain stability, calm, and sort of solving everyday problems, which in their consciousness is linked to Putin's name.
At the same time, some categories of voters are beginning to experience the effect of the law defined by French sociologist De Tocqueville, which in a simplified way can be formulated like this: revolutions do not happen when people are poor, but when life is beginning to improve and they start to be intolerant of minor manifestations of injustice.
Life used to be difficult and hard - but they put up with everything. In the last three or four years, improvement has been prevalent, so voters are becoming more and more discontented, although so far this does not have an explosive nature.
There is presently no party that would entirely satisfy certain needs of voters in justice, comfort, morals...
Question: ...although there are so many small parties! Yet it is absolutely impossible to get an understanding of what they offer to us.
Igor Bunin: Firstly, there are in reality only two ideological "companies": these are the Communist Party supported by voters that have not adjusted to the new life and that are sufficiently ideologized; and the Union of Right Forces (URF) supported by those who have adjusted very well and are oriented towards the West. There is not much difference between the remaining parties. But even for parties, it is becoming difficult to find their own ideological "blend" when voters support liberalization and sensible taxes, but simultaneously for certain ideological patterns linked to state centrism.
Secondly, election blocs are converging. Yabloko, the People's Party, United Russia, and the Liberal-Democratic Party (LDPR) rest on people that have not adjusted in full. I would say the Lot's wife complex is typical for them: himself, Lot went on confidently, while his wife all the time wanted to look backwards. This is how our "unadjusted" voters are looking backwards all the time.
Question: What is more optimal for Putin - to support one party or stay above all parties?
Igor Bunin: The president's strategy originally was this: he heads a party and it gains over 50% in the Duma. Bu - alas! - "the blitzkrieg" collapsed. By May, the Kremlin saw United Russia could get a maximum 18-25% and evened risked to yield to the Communist Party (CPRF). Thus, the strategy of driving the CPRF into "ghetto" and officials into United Russia; lining up everyone; and cutting the remaining parties off funding sources, the administrative resource - this strategy has brought nothing.
Putin realized this was a blind alley and uttered the sacramental phrase: "I am not going to join any party." And he began to give other parties little presents: the URF was praised for active work on creating a new army; the People's Party allowed to run an independent election campaign... Putin has no choice. He has understood that another "column" should be formed and is presently trying to gather the entire electorate under different banners: sending one sort of incentives and slogans to some, and another to others. And he constantly preserves a majority under him.
As a result, an idea emerged to create a second, well-controlled party. With the Kremlin's assistance and initiative "from below," the People's party was formed of single-member constituency candidates, oriented toward the left-centered wing. It began to collect "vagrant," i.e. those voters that haven't made up their mind yet: they are no longer communist, yet not entirely adjusted to the new reality; they want justice, order, and renewal.
Putin has not yet openly supported the People's party or expressed promotional sympathies. Although it has already joined the number of parties that have become associated with future success. Its task is to reinforce the world "people's" sympathized by voters. Just sympathies are not enough though. The closer to the election, the less people choose according to "the-most-pleasant-party" principle. Eventually, voters most often make an ideological choice.
Question: To what degree will the regional elites, the governors support the ruling party - one or another? Or will "the eggs be put into different baskets"?
Igor Bunin: The governors have always preferred pluralism, the existence of many centers and poles. This is optimal to them: the more freedom to maneuver, the better. In the Putin-created one-center system, they just like the oligarchs want to be free to act on their own. But for the press, "for the shop window," they will naturally salute Putin, the administration, Voloshin... Meanwhile, in reality they will play up to the candidates and parties they need.
Question: I cannot help asking, in light of the urgency: what does the launched anti-oligarch war mean? How will it influence the upcoming election?
Igor Bunin: I believe these things are not completely in line with each other, since the war was unleashed beyond the election campaign.
Question: Yet, in principle, can a large corporation handle only economic lobbying?
Igor Bunin: It always comes to have political interests. Moreover, in our society where rules are not absolute and there is always a certain symbiosis between the political and the economic elites. It makes one always invest in politics. Yet, to my mind, major businesspeople will never be able to become normal politicians in Russia. This door is closed for them.
Question: Why? Is it bad when the country is managed by top managers who can count?
Igor Bunin: Politics is a different sort of activity. Businesspeople always think in technical categories: a business plan, strategy, a gradual approach... Meanwhile, in politics there is a need for political thinking which often seems irrational at first sight.
Question: How will this war affect the ranks of voters? Will it influence the president's popularity rating?
Igor Bunin: Putin's rating is so high that an extra oligarch cannot "cook his goose." No doubt, given he had wanted it, the president could have avoided this war. After all, YUKOS has a good reputation. But the regime attacked too roughly, and created a vortex in which the economy is beginning to be bogged down: today we are losing ten billion dollars, tomorrow twenty, the day after tomorrow thirty... This is very dangerous for the Russian economy. And later it will affect Russian politics. Even now, a significant part of the elite is beginning to withdraw from the president.
(Translated by P. Pikhnovsky)
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