Moscow Protests from earlier this year

What are the political parties doing?

The Communists have scored a bit of a coup by gaining permission to hold their rally at the prized Manezh Square in the centre of Moscow. Pro-Putin supporters had also requested permission to rally there, and eyebrows were raised when the Moscow authorities approved the pro-Communist rally ahead of the pro-Putin rally. The Communists’ cause was probably helped by only asking for permission for 5,000 people, whereas the pro-Putin organisers asked for permission for 200,000 people to cram into the centre of Moscow.

The pro-Putin rally is split into two parts. First, permission has been given for 40,000 people to march to the Luzhniki Sports Complex. Secondly, permission has also been granted for a 100,000 strong static rally at the sports complex itself.

A Just Russia and the Liberal Democrats have also applied to hold rallies in central Moscow on 23 February and, although not yet formally approved, it seems unlikely that they will be blocked. An organisation called Essence of Time has also applied for a permit to hold a 15,000 strong rally, which is expected to be pro-Government in nature.

And the independents?

For Fair Elections don’t seem to be planning a formal rally as such. Instead, they have a couple of interesting plans. The first, planned for 19 February, is a car-based protest which will involve people putting white ribbons on their cars and driving around their city, presumably in a pre-defined route.

The second is the intriguing idea of creating a human chain around the Kremlin on Sunday 26 February. The organisers think that this will need more than 30,000 people and, surprisingly, Moscow officials are indicating that this won’t require official permission.

Mikhail Prokhorov, the only independent rally in the Presidential race doesn’t seem to have a formal rally planned, as far as I can see.

Moscow gearing up for more rallies is a post from: Siberian Light

Moscow Protests

The rallies attracted between 75,000 and 200,000 people in total, but no-one really knows for sure how many attended. With all the different claims and counter-claims out there, it really depends on who you believe.

In fact, both the organisers from each side claimed attendance of 100,000 plus. The Moscow Times reports that its journalists on the scene estimated a turnout of 50,000 at the opposition rallies and around 25,000 at the pro-Putin rally.

Anti-Putin rally

The opposition rally, which focused on calling for a re-run of December’s disputed parliamentary elections and on opposing Putin’s bid for the Presidency, seems to have been a relatively peaceful affair, with far fewer reports of arrests than at previous rallies.

Although two of the candidates in the March Presidential election were due to attend the rally, only one showed up in the end. Mikhail Prokhorov took part in the rally, although strangely for a politician, declined the opportunity to make a speech. Sergei Mironov, who had previously promised to attend eventually decided to stay away entirely.

The organisers will no doubt be pleased overall with the way things went. This weekend’s march demonstrates that the opposition seems to be maintaining its momentum and is capable of repeatedly pulling tens of thousands (a hundred thousand if you believe the organisers claims) of people out onto the snowy streets of Moscow. This will give continued heart to those who oppose Putin’s re-election bid, and may also provide food for thought for those from the establishment who hope that opposition might melt after the election season is over.

Pro-Putin rally

The copmpeting pro-Putin rally was also well attended, although perhaps not as well attended as its organisers would have you believe.

There has been a lot of speculation as to whether the pro-Putin rally was a spontaneous as the opposition rallies, and whether those who attended did so because they truly believed in Putin or because they were coerced into attending – an example of the latter is this report from RIA Novosti of a schoolteacher who was allegedly fired for not ensuring that staff at his school attended the rally.

According to a reporter for the New Yorker, it was a bit of both:

“There were, as expected, people who had been paid to come; people who came out because of a work-place ‘initiative’; people who were less than fluent in Russian; and people who were less than sober. But there were also a lot of people who actually support Putin, either because they see no alternative to him, or because they really do like him.”

Putin has professed himself as pleasantly surprised by the strength of feeling of those who took to the streets to support him. So pleased, in fact, that he has offered to pay the fine that will be levied on the organisers for organising a rally that attracted more people than was allowed by their permit.

It will be interesting to see if Putin’s supporters will be able to keep up their momentum in the coming month – and worth remembering that half-hearted pro-Government rallies in places like Egypt have actually ended up hurting the government’s cause more than they helped.

Duelling Rallies in Moscow is a post from: Siberian Light

Although both candidates claimed that they had obtained the 2 million signatures needed for a candidate from a party not represented in the Duma to secure a place on the ballot, the CEC said that more than 5% of each candidate’s signatures (the maximum allowed) were invalid. In Yavlinsky’s case, the CEC reported that almost a quarter of his signatures were invalid – mostly because they were on photocopied sheets.

The CEC confirmed that oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov – the third ‘independent’ candidate – did collect enough legitimate signatures and he will be entered onto the ballot.

Early Reaction

Grumpy Yavlinksy

As far as I can see, Mezentsev hasn’t made any public comment on the decision. Widely regarded as a technical candidate, there only to ensure that the election could go ahead if every other candidate withdrew, his exclusion is odd in some respects as it does mean that the election could technically not happen in the unlikely event that the other candidates agreed to pull out. On the other hand no-one is quite sure how a candidate such as Mezentsev, who had never been involved in national politics before, could have legitimately collected 2 million signatures in such a short period of time.

Although Mikhail Prokhorov will no doubt be pleased that he is now on the ballot, he also criticised the CEC’s decision, calling it “a blow to the legitimacy” of the election. Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov has also criticised the decision, calling it “illegal”.

As expected, Vladimir Putin hasn’t commented directly on the issue, but a Presidential spokesman told reporters that the exclusion shouldn’t affect the legitimacy, or the perceived legitimacy, of the election. “If one of the candidates failed to score the required number of votes, it shouldn’t give rise to claims about the illegitimacy of the election, even before the elections even took place.”

Beleagured CEC Chairman Nikolai Konkin has also defended the decision to exclude Yavlinsky and Mezentsev, resignedly telling reporters: “No politics here, just pure arithmetic.”

Who is left standing?

This week’s shakeup leaves just five candidates in the race to become Russia’s next President – Vladimir Putin (United Russia), Gennady Zyuganov (Communist), Sergei Mironov (A Just Russia), Vladimir Zhirinovsky (Liberal Democracts) and Mikhail Prokhorov (Independent).

The latest reported polling, from FOM shows that Putin remains the overwhelming favourite, with 45% support. Of the others, Zyuganov (11%) and Zhirinovsky (10%) look to be in a battle for the runner up spot and a possible second round runoff against Putin. Mironov and Prokhorov are both polling a disappointing 3%, leaving them battling for the wooden spoon.

Yavlinsky and Mezentsev barred from Russian Election is a post from: Siberian Light

Prokhorov, who with $18 billion to his name is Russia’s third richest man, plans to run as an independent candidate with no party backing and Yavlinsky plans to run as a candidate of the liberal Yabloko party. Both made announcements via their Facebook pages and both plan to submit the signatures they have collected to the Central Election Commission for inspection.

Complex approval process

Mikhail Prokhorov's Facebook announcement

To make the task even more difficult only a maximum of 50,000 signatures can come from a single Russian region, which means that 50,000 people must be found in each of at least 40 Russian regions.

Approval is by no means guaranteed, and the CEC has been accused in the past of using the difficult registration process as a way to block opposition parties from taking part in elections. Mikhail Kasyanov was denied entry into the last Presidential election because some of his signatures were deemed invalid and, as recently as last summer, the People’s Freedom Party was blocked from registering as an official political party for failing to collect enough valid signatures.

Both candidates are confident that their applications will be approved, though, and that they will be on the ballot come March. Given the increased scrutiny of this election, refusal to grant approval would be a PR disaster for the Russian Government.

Additionally, it’s looking increasingly likely that Putin will fail to reach the 50% threshold needed to win the election outright in the first round. The more candidates there are in an election, the better the excuse Putin’s team has for not securing a first round victory so, unless there are some blatant violations of electoral law, I think it’s unlikely that the CEC will take the risk of refusing to register either Prokhorov or Yavlinsky.

Campaigning begins in earnest

Putin's 2012 Presidential election campaign website

Vladimir Putin unveiled his manifesto on his putin2012.ru website earlier today. He seems to be playing the ‘steady hand in a storm’ card, playing on his previous successes and observing that while calls for revolution can be attractive, especially in Russia, they rarely have a positive outcome:

“A recurring problem in Russian history is the desire of a part of its elites to make leaps, to embrace revolution instead of sequential development. Not only Russian experience, but all world experience shows the fatal result of historic leaps: haste and subversion , without creation.”

Off less interest to the foreign observer, perhaps, Putin also promised that, if he is elected, he will improve education in Russia, create millions of new high tech jobs and eradicate poverty in Russia within a decade.

Mikhail Prokhorov, meanwhile, has turned his attention to negative campaigning. In an article for Russian newspaper RBK Daily, he accused the other Russian opposition parties of selling out Russian voters in their haste to accomodate Putin and United Russia. He added that they had “decided to ride the wave of public discontent and convert it for their gain, both politically and commercially.”

The Communist Party hit back with a well aimed below the belt jab of their own, suggesting that Prokhorov might want to explain just how he managed to acquire a personal wealth of $18 billion.

Finally, Vladimir Zhirinosky, the ever-youthful leader of the nationalist Liberal Democrats unveiled his upbeat campaign slogan today. “It’s Zhirinovsky or it will be worse”.

Prokhorov and Yavlinsky collect 2 million signatures needed to run for Russian President is a post from: Siberian Light

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