The Kremlin and opposition are at crossroads in search for exits out of political deadlock
Issue:
May 2012, Vol.7, No.5
Tags:
Putin
After the March presidential elections, where the current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin won a landslide victory in the first round of balloting, the dissenters’ protest sentiments and passions, that have engulfed the country in recent months, will go downwards by physics law, at least by the force of inertia.
In any case, that does not mean that the deep ideological, social and political conflicts between the opposition and the government have been resolved, but quite the contrary, the conflict is still very acute. However, such respite is needed by the mass public protests organizers so as to soberly assess the work they have done during the last 3-4 months in the development of a modern civil society in Russia, define new goals and choose the new tactics and behavioral strategies to achieve them in the new political environment. A similar break is also needed by the Kremlin that now has to rule a new and transformed Russia that is practically divided into two equal parts in relation to the prime minister and president-elect. And, each part is ready to stand to the end in defense of its ideological beliefs.
Commenting on the protest mood that have been ravaging Russia in the past three months since the parliamentary elections in the State Duma, Boris Kagarlitsky, the director of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements (IGSO) — an independent intellectual think-tank, specializing in the provision of initiative assistance aimed at democratic and radical socio-economic transformation of society — called the demonstrations a ‘political training,’ and the mass movement ‘the result of dissented citizens’ growing public discontent” with the country's political authority. “It is certain that the mass movement in the country in 2012 will continue to develop further because of the ongoing accumulation of different problems in the economy, that will require immediate and unpopular political resolutions,” he added. “But the first wave of protests has ended. Putin has skillfully outmaneuvered the discontented citizens, as he spoke about the need for national development without reducing the government’s social and welfare policies.”
Putin won a landslide victory at the election without satisfying any major demands by the opposition by successfully and skillfully applying all the powers of state machinery and bureaucratic resources to nullify his opponents’ flimsy chances for the presidency,. All the positive steps towards meeting the opposition’s demands (see below) have been taken only by the ‘lame-dock’ incumbent President Dmitry Medvedev, whose opinion in the aftermath of the presidential election, now has little or no impacts on major events happening in the country. Besides, the prime minister’s rather sharp public triumphant rhetoric after the announcement of the March election results was not aimed at uniting the nation divided into two opposing camps, but at consolidating his ‘friend against foe’ principle that is at odds with the political traditions in developed democratic countries, where elected national leaders usually call on their opponents to join hands together in the name of progress and stability in society.
“Both the authorities and the protest movement leaders are now faced with the acute task of finding new strategies, as their old and/or existing ones are no longer suited to the new political realities on the ground.”
According to Gleb Pavlovsky, the head of the Effective Policies Foundation, a Moscow-based think-tank, the preliminary consequence of the current government policy is a deeply divided society. “This is because today, there are people who are always ready to stand behind the government to justify any of its actions, no matter how horrid they are,” he added. “In the same token, there are also other categories of people, who will never accept such arguments. Consequently, anyone in the country, who can rationally think, will find himself in one of these camps.”
According to other political analysts all these factors and other unveiling trends mean that the political conflict will not disappear anytime soon, but on the contrary, will acquire a new quality, whereby both the government and opposition are at a crossroads in their frantic search for a mutually acceptable exit procedure out of the exiting political stalemate. And to find a lasting solution, equally acceptable to both parties, in the current hostile environment, will be very difficult, because the political authority, meaning Putin, and the opposition, especially the so-called irreconcilable hardliners, have forced themselves into a deadlock position, more famously known in chess game as ‘Zugzwang,’ where any action or even inaction by a player always leads to a sharp deterioration of his game situation on the board.
According to the IGSO experts, liberal leaders have undermined the citizens’ protest activities by refusing to develop the movement further via putting forward more rigid social and political demands. The attempts to mechanically connect the diverse political forces, the rejection of the vocal calls to boycott the March presidential elections and the absence of new key strategic policy proposals by the nationwide protests organizers really weakened the public’s antigovernment movement. This reality was highlighted by the relative low turnout of protesters in antigovernment rallies in Moscow on March 5, the next day after Putin received a new electoral mandate to rule the country for the next six years.
It is this relatively low turnout of the demonstrators on the Pushkin Square on March 5 and New Arbat on March 10 — both in Moscow, and other cities, where similar protests featuring those discontented with the Kremlin’s current policies, that gave political scientists the premises to call the March protests ‘the final farewell accord’ to the nationwide social upheavals that have swept through Russia since last December, when the citizens accused the Kremlin and Vladimir Churov, the head of the Central Election Commission, in particular, of falsification of the Duma elections in favor of the ruling United Russia party.
Despite this relatively small number of people on the New Arbat demonstration on March 10, attended by 10,000-15,000, compared with the record huge crowds on Bolotnaya Square, estimated at over 50,000, and Sakharov Square, estimated at over 120,000, another record, in Moscow, the public discontent with the government and its half steps towards full democratization and pluralization of political life, being driven by the most active part of citizens, will continue to grow. After all, most of these demonstrators in big cities are economically active citizens, who have achieved a certain level of material prosperity. In other words, having secured their financial freedom, these people have come out to demand for civil liberties, similar to those in other European countries, which are traditionally referred to as truly democratic and civilized nations.
Despite this inevitable decrease in the level of public protest activity, experts admit that the public demonstrations organizers have achieved a lot in such a short term. Thus, according Nikolai Petrov, a member of the Moscow Carnegie Center’s Scientific Council, it would be naive to evaluate the effectiveness of the protests based on the realization of their organizers’ demands and slogans alone. "It is the protest movement that has created a new special atmosphere and launched a real political transformation of our society today,” he said. "We would have never seen such presidential election as the one we saw this spring, if the opposition didn’t force the political authority to ensure transparency, if the opposition did not make the favorite candidate, who was forced to continually justify his position to lead the nation once again even without his direct participation in the debate,.”
A similar view is shared by Pavlovsky, who noted that the pubic protests on Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Prospekt in Moscow and other regions have changed Russia’s political climate forever. But, how deep this change will be, going forward, will depend on the actions or inactions of the government and the opposition. Going forward, both the authorities and the protest movement are now faced with the tasks of finding new strategies, as the old ones are no longer suited to the new political realities on the ground.”
This is particularly so, given that the ideological differences between the government and the opposition today are no longer on the visible level of some individual citizens, such as Sergei Udaltsov, Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov, Garry Kasparov, etc, who are in open confrontation with the Kremlin and its policies, but are also now evident along the economic geography of the country, a new reality clearly demonstrated by the recent presidential election. Going by the poll results, it was after all not Moscow, St. Petersburg or other economically developed regions that propelled Putin to his landslide victory, but the so-called ‘economically depressed or backwards regions, national republics and other dying rural population in remote areas, traditionally dependent on the Kremlin and its vertically constructed regional authorities for subsidies and other everyday necessities for the subsistence.
The first group of regions realizes that the future is behind it, that it is the well-to-do citizens in large cities and economically developed regions that are duty-bound to build a new truly democratic Russia that the protesters are fighting for today. The practical importance of this reality is that if Putin is unable to reach an acceptable accord with Russia’s economically developed and sated regions, then he will have to find a stronghold among the economically depressed or backwards regions, including the traditional problematic national republics. Should such a shaky societal foundation characterize Putin’s ‘second return’ to the Kremlin, then Russia will certainly be turned into a politically unstable and economically feeble major global powerhouse, with all the associated domestic problems and negative geopolitical consequences.
In this regard, according to Anna Ochkina, the head of the IGSO’s Social Analysis Center, the government’s position and authority in the coming months will depend on whether or not it is ready to rescind the long-planned ‘full commercialization’ of social services. “The government can buy itself sometime by increasing social expenses such as public workers’ wages and pensions, etc., but it is certain that it cannot afford to completely back off from the plans to commercialize social benefits.” She explained this further by noting that this policy was in line with the government’s general socio-economic course, and was also dictated by international obligations connected with the country’s admission into the WTO. As an example of the fact that the social services commercialization policy is now the final stage of adoption, the expert cited the creation of the required legal base, notably, the adoption of the Federal Law No. 83. “Among the other measures lined up within the frameworks of social sphere commercialization policy are the launch of the reforms mechanisms and creation of the relevant bureaucratic structures. Based on this, it is clear that the ‘break’ in the nation’s protest activity will not last long.”
Another expert, Vasiliy Koltashov, the director of the IGSO’s Economic Research Center, noted that the political situation in Russia under the de-facto " Putin’s third presidency" would depend on the general state of the global economy, which, has always been the most important factor influencing all the aspects of life in the country due to the unique structure of the national economy. “There were hikes commodities’ prices on the world market following the problematic second half of 2011. But today, this positive trend is likely to be replaced by a new sharp decrease in commodity prices this summer, thanks to the increasing economic, budgetary and debt crises in the EU as well as the budding problems in the Chinese economy,” he added. “In this regard, the political crisis in Russia will probably be aggravated by fall. The opposition leaders have shown reluctance to highlighting the growing social issues, and this the handed the initiative over to the government. Spontaneous eruptions of social slogans demanding for resolution of social issues from the grassroots that will be forced on the opposition leaders are a possibility in the future.”
“It will very difficult for both parties to find an acceptable exit from this deadlock, as the Kremlin and opposition have long forced themselves into a fatally dangerous position, more famously known in chess as ‘Zugzwang,’ where any action or even inaction changes the game outcome from a possible win to a certain loss."
According to IGSO experts, despite all the indications to the contrary the Kremlin does not really have sufficient resources to deal with the imminent so-called ‘second wave’ of global economic crisis today. “Even today, the ruling elite’s social base has continued to shrink, where the split among the elite itself has not been overcome, while the previously ‘docile’ press has spun out of the Kremlin’s rigid control, at least part of it, notably, the Internet-based ones.” The Russian authorities, maneuvering their ways through the crisis and promising reforms, have continued to complicate and/or compromise their positions. In fact, the government does not really want serious changes in the existing status-quo in the society and business environment, being the advocate of a neoliberal course and defender the nation’s raw natural resources-anchored corporations. This is evident from the government's pre-election promises, where one point contradicts the other, whist the whole electoral pledges do not fit into the frameworks of the nation’s adopted budget, and the apparent impracticability of all these promises really angers the economically literate part of the society. This makes the revolutionary situation in the country very real.
In this perspective, the authority, in the opinion of experts, had done itself a great disservice, as it will later suffer more from the lack of leaders to head opposition than the opposition itself. “The fact is when discontented citizens will return to the streets in the future, the authorities will have nobody to negotiate with. The protesters are neither represented in any government’s institutions nor by opposition leaders. Thus, the authorities cannot dialog with the mass protests participants via the opposition leaders as they are not the leaders of the mass protest movement," Petrov added.
On the other hand, the Kremlin, represented by the president-elect and his supporters in the United Russia party and All-Russian National Front movement, ought to clearly understand that life is not going to be as it was before the protests began, as English speakers say in such situation, ‘this is not going to be doing business as usual.’ After all, the Russians have awakened from their political sleep and apathy to the unacceptable behaviors of the authorities at all levels, and the citizens’ tough reasonable demands from the Kremlin, such as full democratization of society, pluralization of political life, creation of independent judicial system, launching real fight against corruption and official privileges, etc, sooner or later have to be met by the government, or at least taken into account during the formulation of its policies. One of the signs that today, the Kremlin, though under the ‘lame-docked president,’ is really evaluating the new political situation in the country is the fact that the guilty verdicts against former Yukos Oil Corp. owners Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev have been sent back to the law enforcement agencies to review their legality. Also, a number of breakthrough bills, such as the return to gubernatorial elections, simplification of procedures for formation and registration of new political parties, strengthening of control over government workers’ incomes and expenses, etc.
As of today, it must be admitted that Russia is in the ascending phase of its political crisis. So, if after his official inauguration, Putin tries to slow down or roll-back the buds of positive transformation of the Russia society under Medvedev, a wave of more massive protests will rise again across the country. This makes the revolutionary moods and sentiments in the country very real, and hence, the process of creating a modern civil society will gain even more rapid momentum in bigger cities and become much stronger at the grassroots levels in the regions. Effective management of these processes in favor of satisfying public hopes and aspirations should be the main mission of Putin’s second return to the Kremlin as the nation’s president, and to hamper all these justified public aspirations will be his biggest strategic mistake in all his years of public governance.
Tatiana Galushko took part in the translation of this text
Narine Adamova took part in the copyediting of this text
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