The story behind Putin’s landslide in Russia

by Henrik Boesen Lindbo Larsen

The Duma elections have witnessed new authoritarian tendencies in the political development of Russia. Putin and his party, United Russia, are now without any real opposition in the new Duma. The Putin-led regime has had success in limiting any potential opposition through new election laws, manipulation and the direct oppression of opposition groups. However, this does not overshadow the fact that the Russians prefer Putin’s Russia to any of today’s unstable political alternatives. This is the conclusion of the SILBA election observation to Moscow during the Duma elections 2007, consisting of Janus Gohr, Lena Azimi and Henrik Lindbo Larsen.

"In chess there are rules", the former chess master Garry Kasparov responds to my question of how he would characterise the opposition’s opportunities if Russian politics were to be regarded as a game of chess. Indeed, Kasparov’s claim seems convincing in regards to the current political situation in Russia. However, it is also true that Putin has widespread support in the general Russian population because his has presided a period of economic progress and political stability which the Russian have not known since the Soviet period.

The political oppression comes first and foremost in the form of new technical election laws from the Kremlin that have hindered realistic opportunities of small opposition parties to gain seats in the Duma. The threshold has been raised from 5% to 7%, and the parties meet further requirements in terms of members and support signatures to run for elections. Additionally, there is a strong media bias in favour of president Putin. There are small free media organisations in Russia – mostly newspapers and internet sites – but the dominant media, the state-owned television channels, are massively in favour of Putin’s plans for Russia.

Finally, some irregularities during the election process and
the crack-down on demonstrations symbolised by the imprisonment of Kasparov himself show the inclination of the Russian regime to use violence to keep down any potential oppositional alternative.

There is no real opposition in the Duma to Putin’s United Russia, since the other newly elected parties (the Communists, A Just Russia and the Liberal Democrats) are either direct supporters of United Russia or agree with United Russia on a large range of crucial policy issues. This is symptomatic for the Russian party system: each party has no deeper connection to societal interests but is instead based on a strong leader profile. This makes the parties highly volatile and often unreliable. The opposition parties outside the Duma which Kasparov has tried to united either have vaguely defined policies or have internally too contradicting policies to form a common alternative, other than just being anti-Putin.

And among the unstable parties – which try to construct an opposition in spite of the tough political conditions – Putin symbolises the only stable policy option for the Russian voters. The Russian voters have experienced the democratic chaos of the 90s: oligarchs, economic crises and changing governments. For the voters, Putin has brought political stability, albeit not democracy, to Russia. In his period, the economic situation has improved as well with an average growth rate of 7% per year, a fact that the Russians see in direct contrast to the capitalistic chaos and poverty.

In sum, therefore, the state oppression combined with his personal popularity among the common Russians are the sources of Putin’s political success. This will ensure Putin’s dominant position in Russian politics, even when his maximum 8 years in a row as president will end in March, 2008. Renewed speculations about a union between Russia and Belarus fuel the predictions of continuing as president of an enlarged Russia.