“Siberia Put on a Red
Belt”
That's the headline from a local paper today. “Red,” of course, being
the color of the Communist Party.
While the Communist party
actually did not received a plurality (not to mention a
majority) of the vote anywhere in the region, the move away from the heretofore
dominant “United Russia” party of Prime Ministry Vladimir Putin
and President Dmitry Medvedev was quite noticeable. In Siberia, the
votes for representatives for the lower house of parliament were
generally split between United Russia and the Communists (with the
split in Novosibirsk being about 30%/30%, while other regions had
United Russia leading the Communists by 10% or so), with two smaller
parties (the Liberal Democratic Party and A Just Russia) each getting
a little less than 15% each. It's clear that the results of this
election mean that United Russia will lose its constitutional
majority (i.e., they will not be able to change the constitution at
will anymore), though they will have the simple majority necessary to
elect a prime minister and pass laws.
 |
| Preliminary results - 2011 election Dark blue: United Russia. Bright red: Communist Party, Dark red: A Just Russia. Light Blue: Liberal Democratic party. The other parties did not receive enough votes to win a place in parliament. Source: http://english.ruvr.ru/ |
About 57% of registered
voters took part in elections, a bit less than in the previous
election cycle. There is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence of unfair
election tactics, though Russian election officials (and observers
from the former Soviet Union) claim that there were no serious
problems. This differs from the preliminary report from observers from the Organization
of Security and Co-operation in Europe, which states:
"This
result shows that voting can make a real difference in Russia, even
when the playing field is slanted in favour of one party. However,
any election needs an impartial referee – and until now, it has not
had one. This needs to change. Yesterday, Russia showed that it is
technically able to organize fair elections – now it is up to the
parties to use this opening for real politics and make it a reality,”
said Tiny Kox, Head of the delegation of the Council of Europe’s
Parliamentary Assembly.
"These
elections were like a game in which only some players are allowed on
the pitch, and then the field is tilted in favour of one of the
players. Although the choice was limited and the competition lacked
fairness, voters were able to come out and have their voices heard,”
said Ambassador Heidi Tagliavini, the Head of the Election
Observation Mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions
and Human Rights.1
I usually don't like to
come to quick interpretations of news stories, since I'm not sure
that it is possible to come to a good understanding of current events
so quickly. On the other hand, though, some of you might be hearing
about the Russian elections now on the news, and I thought that I'd
share my first reaction.
One thing is clear –
United Russia won the elections. Another thing is also clear - there
is really quite a bit of dissatisfaction with United Russia just now.
The reasons for this are many and (perhaps surprisingly for
Westerners) are not readily associated with the financial crises the
world has been going through in the past few years. Instead, it seems
that people may be somewhat tired of a political scene dominated by
one party, especially when it is very difficult to say what this
party stands for. This, I suppose, does a lot to explain the relative
success of the Communist party in this election – they have clear
(if usually quite unrealistic) positions on social and economic
questions. In Novosibirsk, I'd imagine that there is a certain degree
of sincere support for the Communists, insofar as there are so many
people here tied with science and research, and they have reason to
believe that if the Communists were in control, their institutes
would be better funded. But for the most part it seems like the
Communists draw attention, not for their policies, but because it is
thought that they are they only party that can realistically
challenge United Russia. The majority party, on the other hand,
enjoys the support of two groups of people (as far as I can tell):
first, those whose main approach to life is to hope that it won't get
worse (the 2000s saw greater economic stability and growth than the
1990s, and so we should stick with the people who were in charge in
the 00s) and, second, those who received concrete help with their
problems thanks to Presidents Putin or Medvedev. A quick example –
after church yesterday, people were talking about the elections. One
of the people in our congregation said that they she would be voting
for United Russia since President Putin helped solved a problem she
ran into a number of years ago. The land just next to their apartment
building had been illegally seized and construction of a parking
garage had begun. This women gathered signatures protesting
construction from her neighbors, and they wrote to the President. The
president then wrote to the local DA, who took steps to stop the
construction and return the land. While I was happy that this woman
had been helped with her problem, it must be noted that United Russia
controlled every level of government in the past years. So while the
President solved a problem and this is good, the President was also
responsible for helping to build and strengthen a system in which one
needs to write to Moscow in order for a local problem to be solved.
Presidential elections are
scheduled for March. Polls show that Vladimir Putin has lost a lot of
support in the past months, but at present it seems highly unlikely
that a candidate will be found that will even give Mr. Putin a run
for his money. But the political scene in Russia, despite its
stability stagnation in recent years, can also be pretty volatile.
Perhaps the relative success of this parliamentary election will
inspire the minority parties to come together to support one strong
candidate for president. If that happens, you can expect more blog
posts on Russian politics in the future.
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