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Moscow Tribune, November 21, 2003

Funny Elections
Kremlin uses "administrative resource"

By Stanislav Menshikov

Russian "democracy" has invented a new term to define an ancient practice. The term is "administrative resource" and it means using the government machine and its financial resources at all levels to gain advantage over the opposition in formally free elections. In the olden communist days, things were simple. There was no open opposition and no resources to oppose the ruling party. No special expenditure was needed to boost the illusion of regime popularity. As Comrade Stalin used to say, it was not so important how people voted, provided that the vote was "properly" counted.

In today's Russia, widespread opposition is a fact confirmed by public opinion polls and election results. In a capitalistic economy, plenty of businesses and wealthy individuals are eager to finance causes that do not coincide with the government line. And while 90 percent of the population believe that the vote is not counted honestly, leeway for jiggling the figures is limited 5 to 7 percent of the total national tally, according to some estimates.

Boris Yeltsin underestimated the opposition potential, which cost him a left-wing majority parliament elected in 1995 and made political life difficult for him until his resignation at the end of 1999. Only an all-out effort by the "Seven Bankers" and oligarch-controlled media saved his presidential campaign in 1996. Vladimir Putin realised the disadvantage of not having a strong "party of power" and used oligarch financing to create one in time for his election in spring, 2000.

While he managed to consolidate pro-presidential forces in parliament in the next few years, he also lost overwhelming support from the oligarchs. Banishing Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky helped impose government control over national television but made Mikhail Khodorkovsky and other tycoons apprehensive of creeping dictatorship and yearning for a shift to a parliamentarian republic. Consequently, Big Business support began shifting away to opposition parties - both on the Right and the Left. Starting last spring, opinion polls were sending alarm signals to the Kremlin indicating possible loss of pro-presidential majority in the next parliament.

At this point, Putin apparently decided to switch his "administrative resource" into full gear. A pro-Kremlin group of analysts published a report warning of a creeping coup d'etat engineered by the oligarchs. Immediately following came the first "YUKOS" arrests, which later expanded into a full-fledged attack on its principal shareholders, including Khodorkovsky in person.

There is no doubt of the predominantly political motivation behind this action. Sure enough, Khodorkovsky and partners are probably guilty of tax evasion, fraud, fixing sales of government properties, etc. But so are many other privatisers of the last decade. As well as some of the government officials who lent a hand and buttered their own bread in the process. However, singling out one business group that has openly started giving money to leading opposition parties is ample proof that the Kremlin attack is politically targeted.

Further confirmation was provided when the officers of the General Procuracy stormed the offices of a PR company in downtown Moscow hired by the YABLOKO liberal party to work for them in the current election campaign. The alleged target of the search were financial documents related to YUKOS, but in the process confidential YABLOKO papers detailing its staff's activities and campaign plans were also seized. Public protests by the party led nowhere.

The latest attack of the same sort was this week's resolution passed by the pro-presidential Duma majority against the protests of the opposition. It calls on the Prosecutor-General to investigate alleged financial improprieties of "Rosagroprom" company run by a businessman associated with the Communist Party and running on its ticket. The resolution also asks the authorities to investigate alleged financial connections of the Left opposition with emigre oligarch Berezovsky.

Moscow political circles fear that these activities are an attempt to lay the base for disqualifying YABLOKO and the communists from participating in the elections at the last moment when it is too late to appeal possible court action. Taking these parties off the ballot would leave the pro-government "United Russia" practically unopposed, since the "Union of Right Forces" (SPS) led by Anatoly Chubais and Boris Nemtsov is too small to make the difference while LDPR, Zhirinovsky's one-man group, is a Kremlin supporter.

Some politicians associated with Big Business have suggested that the only way to effectively contain Kremlin's "administrative resource" is for all three non-government parties - SPS, YABLOKO and the Communists to formally refuse further participation in the elections and thus force the Kremlin into cancelling them altogether until a more normal political atmosphere in the country is restored. However, there is little likelihood of such cohesion between the Right and Left despite the danger of a new autocracy. Strong support from the business community would help but the Russian Union of Industrialists has demonstrated at its recent congress inability to speak out in defence of of its arrested colleagues, let alone contest Kremlin's political tendencies.

Which means that Russia is in for another term of "managed democracy" with little chance of escaping from its historical plague of authoritarian rule.

 

See also:

State Duma elections 2003

Moscow Tribune, November 21, 2003

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