Russian elections: Putin consolidates regime of “managed democracy”

Russian elections: Putin consolidates regime of “managed democracy”
By Vladimir Volkov
18 December 2003

The December 7 elections to Russia’s State Duma gave a sharply distorted expression to the dissatisfaction felt by tens of millions of citizens with the conditions created by more than a decade of “market reforms.” The popular vote showed that the population is increasingly hostile to the ongoing destruction of social welfare, collapsing living standards and growing social inequality. At the same time, it is left without any real political alternative in a system that is crudely manipulated by ex-Stalinists and the rising class of criminal businessmen.

The main victor in the elections was the pro-Kremlin party “United Russia,” which united unprincipled government officials and representatives of big capitalists, who have staked their fortunes on Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The party won nearly 37 percent of the vote, guaranteeing it more than 200 deputies in the 450-member State Duma lower chamber. It will effectively dominate the parliament and have the power to legally change the Russian constitution if it sees fit.

The other striking result of the vote was the collapse of the two leading parties of the liberals, the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko. Having collected less than 5 percent of the vote each, they have been ejected from the Duma, despite the massive cash infusions by the various oligarchic clans and their active campaign in mass media. The crushing rejection of these parties at the polls can be explained primarily by their identification with the social catastrophe of Yegor Gaidar’s “shock therapy” and the predatory privatisation under Anatoly Chubais.

The success of the nationalists on December 7 was expressed first of all in the strengthening of the chauvinist Liberal Democratic Party under the ultra-right demagogue V. Zhirinovsky. Liberal Democrats campaigned under the slogan “For Russians, for the poor” and gained about 12 percent of the vote. Zhirinovsky’s increase in votes may be explained by the active support by the authorities and the major TV outlets, which featured his antics practically daily for the past few weeks.

The voting bloc “Motherland” also received a significant 9 percent of the vote. This bloc—led by the economist and former minister in the cabinet of Gaidar, S. Glaziev; and by the nationalist-populist and partner of General A. Lebed in the 1996 presidential elections, D. Rogozin—was formed only a few weeks before the election on a programme that included nationalising the natural wealth of the country.

The Kremlin lent support to the “Motherland” bloc, seeing it as a means to weaken the Communist party, as well as to give itself a political cover for the Putin administration’s attacks on some of the “oligarchs.”

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/dec2003/russ-d18.shtml

One might almost think the Russian ruling class
has been assiduously studying the methods used here
in the USA: controlled media, limited debate, restricted
electoral choice, lip service to democratic ideals
while actually ruling by dictate.