Understanding Russia’s Farcical Presidential Election

Russians will go to the polls on Saturday, March 2, to elect a new president. Unlike our suspenseful US elections, in Russia it is all but a foregone conclusion that Dmitry Medvedev will be the winner.

Why such a farce? While hardly anybody claims to “get” the Russian political system, it’s generally agreed that Putin’s power over the Russian public stems from the state’s chaotic transition during the 1990s.

Russia emerged from the ruins of the USSR on January 1, 1992 led by reformist Boris Yeltsin. Economically speaking, it was an entirely new country.

The Russian nouveau riche established their positions through purchasing the most lavish of cars, furs, and mansions. The most flamboyant were members of an elite group of young, big-spending billionaires known as the “Oligarchs”. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Roman Abramovich, Oleg Deripaska, names that conjure up images of kitschy 1970’s spy flicks, dominated Russian business interests.

While the Oligarchs enjoyed their imported champagne and Aston Martins, the middle and lower classes lived a much different life. For all its evils, life under the communist system included full employment and price controls for housing and basic food…provided you could find housing and a market with food still on the shelves and didn’t mind being a university educated bathroom attendant.

The transition to a capitalist market system, therefore, resulted in massive price inflation and a rapid rise in housing costs. Many found themselves using their pension funds merely to buy a week’s worth of bread. Democracy seemed only to breed corruption and spread poverty.

By the time the 2000 Russian presidential elections rolled around the populace was ready for a change. Vladimir Putin’s popularity stemmed mainly from being everything Yeltsin was not.

Where Yeltsin spent his second term in office perpetually ill, Putin was a young national judo champion. While Yeltsin became tainted by corruption allegations, Putin has consistently placed himself as actively anti-corruption. Most importantly, perhaps, where many see Yeltsin as a sell-out to the West, Putin has championed Russia as a great military and political power. Therefore, despite Putin’s rollback of many democratic freedoms, he still remains vastly more popular than Yeltsin.

Massive centralization of power under the executive has occurred during Putin’s two terms as president. Because of this, many international observers speculated that he would refuse to step down after his second term (the Russian constitution imposes a two term limit).

Opposition movements, such as “Other Russia” headed by former chess champion Gary Kasparov, find it nearly impossible to run an official campaign. Yet, unlike twenty years ago, they are allowed to meet and organize. Also unlike Soviet-era Russia, there are multi-party parliamentary and presidential elections, though reports of voter intimidation are rampant on election days.

The answer to the initial question: Russia is neither a democracy nor is it the totalitarian regime it once was. The people in Moscow sport Gap bags, one hears U2 blasting from nearby cars, and copies of Vogue line the nearby newsstand. Down the alleys, however, a different story plays out— the intimidation of political dissidents continues, company workers are still pressured to vote the party line, and another generation wakes to face the autocratic haze.