Numbers are difficult to judge, but it appears that around 5-6,000 people protested earlier in the day, breaking off into a smaller group of around 1,000 that then went on to Triumfalnaya Square. It was there that most of the trouble took place, and according to RIA Novosti, more than 250 people were arrested, including Sergei Mitrokhin, Yabloko’s deputy chairman and former Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov.

“I am outraged at the lawlessness that we saw on 4 December, with the false elections, and on 5 December,” Mitrokhin told reporters. “I am ready to call for the entire government, headed by Putin, to resign.”

Navalny tweeted this picture, saying "With my lads on the police bus. They all say hi,"

Protests were also held in St Petersburg which attracted around 1,000 people, 150 of whom were arrested, and smaller protests were held in a number of other cities across the country.

The protests prompted counter-protests from pro-Kremlin activists, many from Nashi.

The protests, and criticisms of fraud throughout the election, have prompted some response from the Kremlin, albeit a pretty limited one. President Dmitry Medvedev has announced that there will be an investigation of accusations of electoral fraud claims, although he seemed fairly dismissive of most of the claims and took pains to stress that this was something that should be done after every election as a matter of procedure. Putin hasn’t directly commented on the protests, although he doesn’t seem surprised about protests and criticism if this Moscow Times report is anything to go by:

Corruption and embezzlement “are not a cliche for the ruling party, they are a cliche for the authorities” in general, Putin said.

“Think back to Soviet times and the people who were in power back then. All of them were also called thieves and bribe-takers,” Putin said, in a clear nod to United Russia’s reputation as the “party of crooks and thieves,” Interfax reported.

(An interesting choice, by the way, to compare United Russia’s Government to the Soviet Government. It’ll play well with those in the domestic audience who crave stability and familiarity, but it’ll wind up amny protestors and the foreign audience no end.)

Speaking of the foreign audience, there has been a quite excitable reaction from the international press, many of whom seem to be breathlessly hoping for a Russian Arab Spring (no longer do they refer to a colored revolution…) and choosing to focus on the crackdown and the sending of troops in to secure Moscow. My favourite headline was this, from the never knowingly under-stated Fox News: Carnage Breaks Out at Moscow Protests as Youths Square Off.

For all the hype, it’s almost possible to imagine that this week’s protests will build any real momentum. No matter how much breathless reporting we see, the protestors number no more than a few thousand in a city of millions.

However, the protests may have a longer term impact in raising the profile of election fraud among the wider population and in exposing some small cracks in the Kremlin’s resolve ahead of next year’s Russian Presidential election, which has the potential to be a much closer affair. You can imagine that there would be considerable anger if Putin were to pick up 51-52% of the vote in a first round ballot that sees the same obvious manipulation of ballots that we’ve seen this election in Chechnya and other similarly sycophantic regions.

The Communist Party’s candidate Gennady Zyuganov is most likely to finish second in the Presidential election. He and his supporters will have good reason to be very upset if he is denied a run-off due to electoral fraud. If Zyuganov has any sense, he’ll be closely studying these Moscow protests and thinking about how much impact they could have if they were backed by the full weight of the Russian Communist Party.

Then maybe the press will have something to get breathless (and even more confused than normal) over.

Moscow Protests: For now or the future? is a post from: Siberian Light

From what I can tell, there are elections taking place, or soon to take place in Georgia, Kazakhstan, South Ossetia and Turkmenistan. Plus Moldova proper’s odd constitutional quirk of requiring the Parliament to elect its President is causing problems in an evenly divided Parliament.

(Aside: I found it fascinating to see just how many of the politicians I’ve mentioned below have had their pictures taken with President Obama of the United States.)

Kazakhstan

First up, Central Asia’s largest country, where recently re-elected President Nursultan Nazarbayev has called a snap election for 15 January 2012. Widely expected, the election is (counter-intuitively) likely to lead to a reduction in the number of parliamentary seats held by Nur Otan, Nazarbayev’s own party.

However Nazarbayev didn’t get to spend 20 years as Kazakhstan’s President without a good sense for which way the wind is blowing. He’s likely to have calculated that his position will be made even safer if he can secure a double success of introducing a tiny amount of very tightly managed political competition that will engage people locally and give bankers and investors an excuse to believe that they are investing in country that is becoming increasingly democratic.

Of course, we should all conveniently ignore the fact that the only parties competing in the election will be broadly pro-Nazarbayev, and that the only real opposition parties of any note have either been barred from registering (Alga) or conveniently suspended from taking part in politics for six months (the Communists).

Georgia

The beleaguered Presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili faces a new threat ahead of Georgia’s 2012 Presidential election. Boris Ivanishvili – the world’s 185th richest man – has announced his intention to form a new political party and run for the Presidency.

Until recently, Ivanishvili hasn’t directly engaged in Georgian politics and largely shunned the public eye. Instead he preferred to – as this rather sympathetic BBC profile puts it – to focus on contributing to life in Georgia by “funding the arts and paying for public buildings such as Tbilisi’s huge ornate cathedral”.

Ivanishvili’s business interests are mainly in Russia, however, and he is seen by man to be far too close to the Russian Government – which is not a comfortable thing to be in a country that was humiliated by Russia on the field of battle less than three years ago.

Which means that it’s probably not much of a surprise that a Georgian law banning dual citizenship has recently been enforced against Ivanishvili, who until recently managed to hold passports from three countries – Georgia, France and Russia. And now, with his Georgian citizenship stripped from him, he’s not really eligible to take part in the Presidential election…

South Ossetia

Right next door, South Ossetia is holding its first Presidential election since Russia secured its de-facto independence in the brief 2008 war with Georgia. Intriguingly, the two main candidates came so close as to be effectively tied after the first round.

Anatoly Bibilov, the emergencies minister, and Alla Dzhioyeva, the former education minister received 23.8% and 24.6% of the vote respectively, and will duke it out in the second round next weekend. Bibilov is regarded by many as the handpicked successor of Eduard Kokoity, South Ossetia’s outgoing President who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term of office, so it comes as quite a surprise that he hasn’t managed to pull ahead of his rival.

It’s likely that he will do so in the second round, however, which will no doubt provide plenty of ammunition for Western critics who are already beginning to view this election through the prism of the pro-Kremlin candidate (Bibilov) versus the plucky opposition (Dzhioyeva), and conveniently disregarding the fact that, following the war, pretty much everyone involved in South Ossetian politics is pro-Russian.

Moldova

In Moldova, the Parliament is required to elect the country’s head of state – the President. Unfortunately, for the past two years, the Parliament has been pretty evenly divided between two main parties, the Communists and the Alliance for European Integration, and neither party has been able to put forward a candidate capable of securing the 60% of votes required to be elected.

So, for the past two years, the Moldovan State has been headed by a succession of Acting Presidents.

The latest attempt to find a candidate who could win an election failed this week, leaving Moldova facing the likelihood of a new Parliamentary election to break the deadlock. It had been hoped that the prospect of a new election (which neither party really wants) and the defections of three members of the Communist party earlier this month, but alas it was not enough of an incentive.

No news yet of what the next step will be, but if this situation goes on for much longer it’s going to make Moldova look pretty silly, and unattractive to outside investors. It’s also winding up the European Union, which would like to see Moldova settle down and chart a course one way or the other.

Turkmenistan

Finally, Turkmenistan, where a Presidential election is scheduled for February 2012.

Sadly, any hope that Turkmenistan watchers might have had that the end of Saparmurat Niyazov’s reign in 2006 might have led to a slightly more democratic government appear to have been dashed by the increasingly autocratic leadership of his successor, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow.

Although Berdimuhamedow has repealed many of Niyazov’s more bonkers policies (remember, this man was the Turkmenbashi, the President for Life, who renamed the month of January after himself), he has spent the past five years ensuring that he secures his own iron grip over Turkmen life and politics. Most notably, Berdimuhamedow was recently given the award “Hero of Turkmenistan” by the Turkmen Parliament, describing his rule as “paradise on earth”.

Naturally, we will await the results of this close fought election in February…

Post-Soviet Elections Roundup is a post from: Siberian Light

Four men are vying for the top job – Putin’s Poodle, the Neo-Communist, Mad Vlad, and the liberal Masonic Grandmaster who likes to blog.

Dmitry Medvedev – United Russia
Official website: medvedev2008.ru

The unanswered question on everyone’s lips is – will President Medvedev be his own man, or just Putin’s Poodle?

So far, we’ve seen precious little independent spirit in Dmitry Medvedev. In fact, Vladimir Putin’s preferred candidate is the consumate civil servant – for the past decade, been quietly working in the background, supporting his political master’s career. He managed Putin’s 2000 election campaign and, in 2003 became the Kremlin’s Chief of Staff.

In a word – dull.

Only since 2005, when he was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister, has Medvedev had any kind of real public profile. He used it to good effect – seeing off the marginally more charismatic Sergei Ivanov in the race to become Putin’s unofficially nominated successor.

Of all the four Presidential candidates, Dmitry Medvedev probably has the most clearly defined policies – they consist essentially of doing the same as Vladimir Putin. So closely aligned, in fact, are the two men’s policies, that Medvedev has already invited Putin to become his first Prime Minister.

Perhaps Dmitry Medvedev’s one saving grace is that he is a hard rocker. It’s hard to imagine that a fan of Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, could be a entirely slavish devotee of authority…

Prediction: Although Medvedev is polling at 75-80%, I’m going to stick my neck out and say he’ll finish up with around 60-65% of the popular vote. Scoring less than 50% would be an utter disaster for Medvedev but, barring an unexpected catastrophe, there’s no chance of his being forced into a run-off.

Gennady Zyuganov – Communist Party of the Russian Federation
Official website: kprf.ru/personal/zyuganov/

He might not look it from the picture, but Zyuganov is the battle scarred veteran of Russian politics.

In 1996, during some of Russia’s darkest days since the end of the Soviet Union, Zyuganov ran against Boris Yeltsin for the Presidency. Scoring 32% of the vote – just 3% less than Yeltsin – during the first round, he forced the election into a run-off. Zyuganov’s campaign focused on Yeltsin’s ill health, and the terrified incumbent President had to draw on all the advantages of state power to secure a narrow victory in the final round. In doing so, Yeltsin set the standard for all future ‘managed’ elections in Russia.

Zyuganov had another pop at the Presidency in 2000, scoring a reputable 29% of the vote and, although he had the good sense to avoid the 2004 race against an insanely popular Putin, he’s back for more this year.

Zyuganov’s chances of victory are all but nonexistent. The Communist Party’s core demographic is older voters, nostalgic for Soviet stability, and old Father Time is steadily killing off his support.

A number of disaffected younger Russians, who no longer remember the Communist era, are joining the Communist Party as an expression of their frustration, but probably not in large enough numbers to balance the losses among older supporters.

As you’d expect from a Communist – the core of his policy is based around renationalisation of private industry.

Polling at around 10%, Zyuganov will again be hoping for a second place finish. Anything above 25% would be a remarkable victory for him, and I’d imagine his campaign will try to establish him as the only reputable alternative for all disaffected Russians – especially now that Mikhail Kasyanov, the only recognisable Liberal candidate has been forced out of the race.

Prediction: Zyuganov will be thrilled that Kasyanov is out of the race. My money is on Zyuganov to exceed expectations, and pull in 20-25% of the popular vote, paving the way for one final tilt at the top job in 2012.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky – Liberal Democratic Party of Russia
Official website: ldpr.ru

Mad Vlad, they call him. Because he is.

Off all the candidates, Zhirinovsky is the most colourful. He’s an extreme nationalist, but at the same time a very pragmatic politician, who knows how to appeal to his base. An anti-semite with a Jewish father, he regularly calls for the reformation of the Soviet Union – he was a vocal supporter of the 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev – and gets into fist fights in the Russian Parliament. Most would roll their eyes, but a small minority of voters love him.

As a result, Zhirinovsky has been a force in Russian politics for almost two decades, ever since he founded the very first official opposition party in the Soviet Union, way back in 1990.

The LDPR has now morphed into a nationalist party, but one with just about enough support to give it a few seats in the Russian Duma – probably helped by Zhirinovsky’s inspired decision to ask Andrei Lugovoi, the man wanted in Britain for poisoning Alexander Litvinenko, to head up the party list.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Zhirinovsky has run for President three times (along with Zyuganov, he chickened out of running against Putin in 2004), and never received more than 8% of the vote. His last run was in 2000, where he scored a disappointing 2.7% of the national vote.

Prediction: This year, in a small field, Zhirinovsky will be aiming to ride on the coat-tails of the Kremlin’s newly assertive foreign policy and break the 10% barrier for the first time. I’m not convinced of his broader appeal, though and think undecided anti-establishment voters would prefer to go with Zyuganov or Bogdanov instead, leaving Zhirinovsky with a disappointing but respectable 5-8%.

Andrei Bogdanov – Democratic Party of Russia
Official website: democrats.ru (link broken at time of writing)

At 38, Andrei Bogdanov is the youngest, and most unexpected candidate in this election.

Bodganov heads up a liberal party that is both genuinely liberal, and genuinely unpopular in Russia. How the leader of a party that managed to secure 0.3% of the popular vote in a national election a few months ago managed to secure 2 million signatures to get onto the ballot for the Presidential Election is anyone’s guess.

That his 2 million signatures were approved by the Central Election Commission, while the 2 million signatures of former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov were ruled invalid has led to criticisms that Bogdanov is only in the election so that the Kremlin can remove its only real liberal opponent and still point to the results and say: “Look, Russia is a democratic country – there is a Liberal party in our elections, and nobody voted for them!”

Campaigning on a platform of integration with the European Union and NATO, Bodganov has no chance of securing a sizeable vote.

But, looking on the bright side, as well as being genuinely liberal, Bogdanov has long hair, and he’s the Grand Master of the Russian Masonic Lodge.

Oh, and Bogdanov is one of Russia’s most prominent political bloggers. In between political commentary, he likes to post pictures of himself in his swimsuit.

Bogdanov will be aiming to pick up votes from other disenfranchised liberals, plus the odd protest vote. A result of around 5% would be good, anything above that could potentially position himself and his party as one of the most influential Liberal parties in Russia ahead of the next round of Duma elections in a few years.

Prediction: Despite his weaknesses, Bogdanov is the only liberal candidate, and I think enough liberals will swallow their pride to push Bogdanov just past the 5% mark.

Russia's Presidential Election – the Candidates is a post from: Siberian Light

Russia isn’t the only place holding a Presidential election in 2008, you know. The more eagle eyed amongst you may have spotted that there is a rather trivial contest currently taking place in America.

It’s Super Tuesday today in the US so, in the interests of making sure that all elections are covered fairly, I thought I’d take a look at what each of the remaining US presidential candidates has to say about Russia and about our hero Vladimir Putin, the mighty President they all hope one day to emulate…

Let’s start off with the Republican candidates. And, it must be said, some of them have some very strange views indeed.

First up is Mitt Romney, who really knows how to spew out the verbal vomit. Take, for example, his response to the news that Time Magazine had nominated Putin as their Person of the Year:

“Oh, you are kidding. That’s disgusting. I’m absolutely – I mean, are you – I mean, I haven’t seen Time. Are you serious?”

But at least he recovered his composure enough to tell us just why he was disgusted:

“Well, you know, he imprisoned his political opponents. There have been a number of highly suspicious murders. He has squelched public dissent and free press. And to suggest that someone like that is the man of the year is really disgusting. I’m just appalled.”

At least he’s concerned. Ron Paul, the doggedly determined outsider candidate, seemed to be more concerned with demonstrating his independence from mainstream thought than actual politics when he became the sole member of the House to vote against a 2007 resolution that noted…

�…the disturbing pattern of killings of numerous independent journalists in Russia since 2000, and urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to authorize cooperation with outside investigators in solving those murders.�

Ron Paul excepted, the Republican party line seems to be ‘we don’t love Putin’. Mick Huckabee is no exception. When asked about Putin’s infamous topless fishing picture, Huckabee confessed his true love for another:

“While I am impressed with the fact he can get out and go fishing, the shirtless photo doesn’t do anything for me. Now, if it was a picture of Scarlett Johansson, that would be another story.”

Indeed.

The Republican prize, though, has to go to old-timer John McCain, who drew on all his years of experience to look deep into Putin’s eyes and see more than just his soul:

“I know Mr. Putin. I’ve looked into his eyes, and I saw three letters — KGB.”

McCain’s not just about the soundbytes, though – he’s able to resist the urge to get all hysterical and give us considered analysis as well:

Putin is going to cause us a lot of difficulties…I don’t think it’s going to be a return to the cold war, they don’t have the population…anything that would bring around the kind of military might that they once had, even with the petrodollars….but they are trying to reassert the Russian empire…and they are going to be a thorn in our side.

As I write this, there are only two Democratic candidates still standing – Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Hillary, as you might expect, trots out a tired soundbite:

“This is the president that looked into the soul of Putin, I could have told him, he was a KGB agent, by definition he doesn’t have a soul, I mean this is a waste of time, right, this is nonsense.”

Now where have we heard that before?

Clinton seems to have pretty much given up on the idea of promoting democracy in Russia, too:

�I’m interested in what Russia does outside its borders first. I don’t think I can, as the president of the United States, wave my hand and tell the Russian people they should have a different government.�

At least Barack Obama finds time to talk policy about Russia, even if he is dull, and manages to slightly contradict himself:

We will not pursue unilateral disarmament. As long as nuclear weapons exist, we’ll retain a strong nuclear deterrent. But we’ll keep our commitment under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty on the long road towards eliminating nuclear weapons. We’ll work with Russia to take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair-trigger alert, and to dramatically reduce the stockpiles of our nuclear weapons and material. We’ll start by seeking a global ban on the production of fissile material for weapons. And we’ll set a goal to expand the U.S.-Russian ban on intermediate-range missiles so that the agreement is global.

So, there you have it. You can now make a considered decision as to which candidate best represents your views on Russia.

But, before you go, just a quick reminder of why these six candidates have survived this far – they’re not as stupid as Bill Richardson:

“If I am elected President I will… seek immediate negotiations with the Soviet Union.”

And now, to vote…

US Presidential candidates on Russia is a post from: Siberian Light

Finacial meltdown

Yabloko garnered just 1.59% of the popular vote in December’s Duma elections and the Union of Right Forces (SPS) received a mere 0.94%, which effectively renders both parties as non-entities on the national political scene. Not only did they both fail to gain the 7% of votes needed to secure a place in the Duma, they failed to even reach the 3% required to qualify for free airtime in the run-up to the election. As a result, they’ll have to pay for the airtime they used – approximately $8 million apiece.

As a result, both parties are heavily in debt. No-one in Yabloko HQ will reveal the exact figures, but senior Yabloko member Alexei Melnikov has indicated that the party’s debt currently stands at 5 times its current annual budget of $1.8 million. SPS meanwhile are reported to be more than $8 million in debt.

Of the two, perhaps SPS is in the stronger position to come out fighting – their links to Russian business will be a great help when it comes to fund-raising – but the future looks bleak for both parties, and I wonder how they can possibly survive another electoral beating of this magnitude.

Internal party politics

Both parties are clearly agonising over their defeats, but it is far from clear that anything much will actually change.

Nikita Belykh had the good grace to resign as leader of the Union of Right Forces (SPS). He cited the party’s poor performance at the polls – SPS gained just 0.94% of the vote – and his own strategic blunder of not taking a tough stance against the Kremlin until it was too late.

Unfortunately, perhaps, for the concept of personal accountability, he was re-elected at the SPS Party Congress yesterday.

The Party Congress also decided to nominate the party’s co-founder Boris Nemtsov as their candidate for the upcoming Presidential election, demonstrating pretty conclusively that not much is actually going to change at the top for the next few months at least.

At Yabloko, meanwhile, things look more interesting – even if not particularly sensible. Rumours are circulating that Grigory Yavlinsky their long-time leader, may be facing a challenge.

Underlining this was the party’s decision to back Vladimir Bukovsky as their Presidential candidate. Although perhaps positive in that it shows some diversity, I can’t help but think that a party that chooses a man who lives in London as its Presidential candidate is on the fast track to political self destruction.

Unification – the only option left?

There has been plenty of talk in the past few years about a merger between Yabloko and SPS, to shore up their decaying futures. But, for the most part, such talk has been of the hopeful pie in the sky variety.

There are some proud personalities involved in Russia’s liberal politics, and everyone fears that they would lose their own identity in a merger. Even today, Boris Nemtsov of SPS is completely opposed to the idea of a merger with Yabloko:

“Unification on the basis of Yabloko is no unification at all,” Nemtsov said, dismissing the prospect of joining up with the party as “complete nonsense.”

If he, and Yabloko, want to carry on along their current path, well, that’s fine I suppose. But they should walk in the full knowledge that the path they are on heads straight to the nearest cemetery.

If Russia’s liberals want to have an impact on national politics, they absolutely have to muster enough votes to get into the Duma. Neither SPS nor Yabloko, as has been demonstrated clearly this December, have a cat in hell’s chance of doing it alone.

Leonty Byzov, head of the analytical section of state polling agency VTsIOM, along with other analysts, estimates that around 10-12% of Russia’s voters are ‘liberal,’ so there’s a pretty sizeable chunk of the electorate out there up for grabs – certainly enough to get a liberal party into the Duma.

If Yabloko and SPS, and the other smaller liberal parties can’t find it within themselves to gather up their courage and merge into one united liberal party, they will never pull in enough votes to cover their operating costs, let alone become nationally significant.

For Yabloko or SPS, it really is time to unify or die.

Unify or die – the stark choice facing Russia’s liberals is a post from: Siberian Light