Russia needs more political parties, says Vladislav Surkov, the magnificently, if not entirely correctly named deputy head of the Kremlin administration in charge of parties.
Surkov started criticizing Russia’s party system, which he helped form, in spring. “The biggest drawback of our political system is that it is leader-based and hence depends on one party,” he told a meeting with the regional activists of the Russian Party of Life on March 24 (the transcript of the meeting was published yesterday). “There is no major alternative party, which makes the system unstable.”
He seems to want the Party of Life, whoever they are, to be the main opposition to the Kremlin backed United Russia.
I’ve seen a couple of articles on this today (Guardian, Publius Pundit), both of whom have been rightly mocking.
But, to me, one thing seems conspicuous by it’s absence in both articles – neither mention that Russia already has a couple of well organised opposition parties, both complete with party machines.
Who? Well, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation for one. Or the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia for another. Both of these parties have been knocking around for a decade or more, and been relatively consistent performers in parliamentary elections – between them in the last Duma election they cornered about a quarter of the popular vote.
No, neither of these parties can win power in Russia today. The only real challenge to Putin will come from someone with decent democratic credentials, who captures the imagination of the people, or someone who can capture the hearts of businessmen, and con the people that he is a democrat.
But both the Communists and Liberal Democrats are potential kingmakers. Anyone that wants to seriously challenge the current status-quo in the Kremlin absolutely must come to some kind of arrangement with one or the other. Because otherwise they’ll split the anti-Putin vote.
For my money, I’d much rather it was the Communists than the Liberal Democrats.
Interesting post. I think though that there is a flaw in your argument: you assume that the official tally of the votes in Russian elections is actually representative of the votes which were cast.
Andrew Wilson and others have done quite a bit of research which proves that elections are nothing more than ‘virtual politics’. Consequently, the total votes ‘earned’ by the CPRF or LDPR are more allocations than anything else.
So, if we adjust the votes formally awarded for the amount of votes which were artificially allocated, then I think the CPRF and LDPR have a bit less influence as ‘kingmakers’ than appears at first glance.
I haven’t read Wilson’s book but I’m somewhat sceptical that ‘allocations’ of votes would imply that the Communists and Liberals can’t be kingmakers.
The Communist Party’s results in elections were significantly stronger prior to Putin’s arrival on the scene. In the 1996 Presidential election, for example, Gennady Zyuganov hit a high of 40% of the vote in the second round runoff against Yeltsin.
In Putin’s far better orchestrated 2000 campaign, Zyuganov still managed 30% of the vote.
True, the Communist Presidential candidate in 2004 only pulled in 13.7% of the vote, but Zyuganov stood aside in favour of Nikolai Kharitonov, a candidate who would be charitably described nobody.
But, if vote ‘allocation’ is going on then I’d say it is likely that the Communists’ recorded tally is under-representative of their true strength.
(By the way, I feel the need here to emphasise that I am not a communist party supporter!)
Virtual Politics does sound interesting, though. I’ll see if I can track down a copy.
That’s what I was pretty much going to say regarding the KPRF, Andy. They’re the only party with a really strong infrastructure in place across Russia. If anything, I suspect reported vote totals for the Communists have been below their actual totals from the 1996 to present, with them losing far more of their totals under Putin.
FWIW, it seems the only reason to create a phony opposition party is to make sure there is one with an unappealing leader. Is the LDPR pretty much already the country’s phony opposition party?
I think you’re right Nathan – the Kremlin likes the LDPR quite a lot. They’re a consistent performer on the Russian political stage, but fringe enough to never actually be a real threat to the establised order.
But I think the Kremlin is at the same time somewhat embarrassed by the LDPR, and would much rather that their ‘managed’ democracy had somewhat more… reasonable… parties, that looked more presentable on the world stage.
It’s hard to crow about the health of democracy in your country when more foaming madness comes out of the leader of one of the three main political parties than from the average rabies victim.
Andy – I take your point – all I was trying to point out is that if the votes are allocated then that diminishes the Communist’s ability to be kingmakers as the level of their support checked by the authority’s ability to manage the elections.
I also wonder if setting-up shell parties might actually help ‘real’ democracy in the end.
When the Soviet government started to unravel the country disintegrated largely along the lines of the constituent republics (Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, etc.) which up to that point where nothing but facades.
I wonder if Putin allows a fake opposition to become institutionalized, then when/if Putin or one of his successors becomes weak real democrats will enliven the hitherto virtual ‘projects’.
Just a thought…