Webcams in every polling station

In his recent marathon TV interview, Vladimir Putin proposed placing webcams in every single polling station during March’s Presidential election. The proposal came in reaction to criticism that United Russia’s victory in the Duma elections was due to fraud – namely ballot stuffing.

And, today, Putin put a price on this proposal. According to RIA Novosti a staggering $470 million has been allocated to the task of putting a webcam in every single one of Russia’s 95,000 polling stations.

Great, some will say – spending so much money on blanket coverage webcams is a wonderful way of demonstrating Russia’s commitment to holding free and fair elections. Sceptics, such as myself, might take a moment to divide $470 million by 95,000 and wonder why Russia is spending $4,947 per webcam.

Old Warriors break out their Zimmer frames and stand for election

Gennady Zyuganov - fresh faced Presidential candidate

Almost all of the candidates for the Presidential election have now been nominated by their parties, and rather depressingly it will surprise no-one to discover that almost of them have contested at least one previous Presidential election.

• Gennady Zyuganov, the Communist Party candidate, has contested three of the last four Presidential elections, finishing second each time (always the bridesmaid…).
• Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party’s ageing standard bearer, goes one better by entering his fifth election.
• Grigory Yavlinsky, the Yabloko candidate, will be – assuming he collects the required 2 million signatures – entering the race for Russia’s top job for the third time. He stood for election in 1996 and 2000, so I guess he’s at least had a chance to take a break and recover his vitality.
• Sergei Mironov, who’ll be representing A Just Russia, is a relative rookie – he’s only taking part in his second election.

In fact, the only complete newcomer in the race* is independent candidate Mikhail Prokhorov – and that’s assuming that, like Yavlinsky, he manages to secure the 2 million signatures that any candidate who isn’t nominated by a Duma party needs to get to enter the race.

(* I’m assuming that Dmitry Mezentsev, the Irkutsk Governor who has agreed to stand as the emergency reserve candidate in the event that no-one else is eligible, isn’t actually going to appear on the ballot.)

Small candidates get kicked out

As was also expected, the fringe candidates are being rejected on technical grounds, one by one. Eduard Lminov, head of the Other Russia party is one notable victim – he was denied registration because he didn’t have the right papers, despite his novel approach of collecting signatures on the bus. Nikolai Levashov – the faith healer who cures people over the phone – was knocked back because he didn’t meet residency requirements, and Boris Mironov bit the dust because of a prior criminal conviction for extremism.

Looking on the bright side, each of these candidates has had their day or two in the media spotlight, and they’ve been saved the hassle of having to spend months on the buses trying to do the impossible and collect two million signatures. On balance, I suspect they’re rather glad the way things have turned out.

Russian Presidential Elections Roundup is a post from: Siberian Light

Kasparov, the former World Chess Champion, says he was forced into his decision because Other Russia were not able to find a venue to occupy 500 supporters in an initiative group meeting – a requirement of Russian electoral law.

Announcing his decision to withdraw from the race, Kasparov told reporters:

“In all Moscow we have not been able to find a hall where our supporters could meet. We pay and the people agree. There are no problems.

And then they call us to say they are refusing, can’t give us the hall anymore.”

Other Russia have had problems securing venues before, as hotels and conference centres would take their bookings then pull out at the last minute. The venues always seem to blame technical reasons, but it’s hard to credit that so many technical problems would affect every venue approached by Other Russia. Instead, venues clearly believe that hosting an Other Russia conference would not be good for their business in the long term. And who can blame them.

The real reason behind Kasparov’s decision to pull out of the race, I suspect, is that he had almost no chance of securing the 2 million signatures needed to endorse his candidacy – and failing in this effort would have been political suicide. Far better for Other Russia to hold their horses, continue sniping from the sidelines and, perhaps, have another stab at electoral politics in four years time. Perhaps by then, Putin’s power will be on the wane, and there will be a real opportunity for a non-establishment challenge.

Still, I’m a little disappointed that Kasparov used this as an excuse to withdraw. I would have expected a little creativity, to be honest. Perhaps Kasparov could have arranged a meeting of 500 activists during a demonstration. Sure, it may not have satisfied the electoral commission, but it would have made for some great tv footage, as Russian police broke up the meeting.

As it stands, Russia’s democratic hopes will once again be represented in a Presidential election by Gennady Zyuganov, a Communist…

Kasparov pulls out of Presidential race is a post from: Siberian Light

Medvedev was nominated by United Russia and endorsed by Vladimir Putin – an endorsement so powerful that now all he has to do to win the Presidential election next March is stay alive.

Medvedev has no real power base in the Kremlin beyond Putin – a native of St Peteresburg, he has no strong ties to any Russian siloviki group, and no KGB background to fall back on. Putin’s chief of staff, and the architect of his 2000 election victory, Medvedev is a phenomenally competent adminstrator – combined with his largely liberal and less hawkish views towards the West, he seems the ideal candidate to become a puppet President to Putin’s Prime Minister, allowing Putin to get on with the job of ruling Russia, while Medvedev charms the West.

I’m beginning to wonder (and I don’t think I’m alone), though, whether Medvedev could actually be the real deal – that is, a President who actually leads Russia, as Putin slips gently into an early semi-retirement.

Medvedev’s loyalty to Putin means that he is unlikely to turn on his former boss. And, rather like Putin back in 2000, Medvedev is the man nobody can conceive of as being President – no power base, stuck in the middle of warring clans. The perfect man to hold everything together…

And, as Chrisus Maximus notes over at Sean’s, pretty much everyone thought Yeltsin’s retirement was a sham at first:

“But by all accounts, Putin may be leaving the Presidency, but there has never be any indication that he will leave Russian politics.”

Isn’t this what they said about Yeltsin?

Really, given the immense powers of the presidency, can the president be anyone’s puppet? They said VVP was BAB’s kukla.

But, really, the only thing I know for sure is that Kremlin watchers aren’t going out of business any time soon. Which, as a Kremlin watcher, cheers me immensely.

Dmitry Medvedev: Russia's next President is a post from: Siberian Light

Other parties passing the seven percent threshold and guaranteeing themselves seats in the next Duma were the Communists (11.6%), Mad Vlad Zhirinovsky’s LDPR (8.2%) and Fair Russia (7.8%)

No real surprises, but a couple of quick points worth noting.

First, United Russia failed to reach the supermajority (66%) they would need to amend the constitution alone. True, Fair Russia and the LDPR are allies of United Russia, and almost certain to vote with Putin’s party and give him control of almost 90% of the Duma’s seats, but the near miss will surely rankle with the top brass in the Kremlin. Particlarly after so much effort was spent in ‘persuading’ people to vote for the right party.

(Update: It looks as though my maths was a little wonky and United Russia will actually have a super-majority. The red face here belongs to me, rather than anyone at UR).

Second, the pollsters who predicted that the next Duma would be made up of just two parties – United Russia and the Communists – were proved wrong. Instead, four parties will be represented in the Duma. Perhaps someone in the Kremlin really was worried that Putin would look too much like a dictator…

Image from Russia Today

Putin's United Russia win – but fall just short of super-majority is a post from: Siberian Light

With just a couple of weeks to go until Russia’s parliamentary elections on 2nd December, it’s looking increasingly as though United Russia are set for a massive victory.

However, depressingly, only two of the ‘major’ parties are likely to scrape together the seven percent of votes needed to gain any seats in the Duma – United Russia, and Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Based on a Lenta poll, the next Russian Duma will look something like this:

If the pollsters are correct, United Russia will have 371 Duma seats, the Communist Party a mere 79.

On the face of it, great news for United Russia. Only one opponent to worry about, and majority of substantially more than two-thirds. But it appears as though the Kremlin is beginning to worry athat United Russia may actually be too dominant…

Media coverage of other parties seems to be increasing (albiet only slightly) and there are some early indications that a couple of the other parties – most likely the loony LDPR and the slightly dull Just Russia – might just manage to scrape together enough votes to clamber over the magical 7% mark.

Why?

Well, some would say it’s because a Duma dominated by only one party just wouldn’t look good – either at home or abroad. Putin’s image is at stake.

But I prefer this explanation from Argumenty Nedeli:

Rumor has it that the CPRF might arrange a political scandal with a demostrative walkout from the Duma. That would leave the Duma unable to function, since the law requires the Russian parliament to have at least two parties.

Translation by Elena Leonova for Johnson’s Russia List 2007 #239

Not that would put a dent in Putin’s image. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be for Putin if he was forced to run another election just because he was too damn popular…

(Note: The figures used to construct these graphs came from a Levada poll carried out last week. The levada.ru website is currently down, though, so I’ve used a link to a news story for the time being).

Does Putin really want a 2-party Duma? is a post from: Siberian Light