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Although a considerable amount of time remains until the official start of the parliamentary election race, the parties are taking up their positions now. It is crystal clear that the Kremlin will pull the strings in the forthcoming elections. On the other hand, success depends not only on the director, but also on the implementers of his idea. Consequently the director will have to work hard to make them perform as he wants.
However, let us begin with the idea of performance. The goal is perfectly clear - to create a pro-presidential two-third majority of the votes in the new State Duma. It would appear that the Kremlin has abandoned the simplistic interpretation of this idea, whereby one party should make up the majority, for example the completely tamed United Russia. For it only requires a constitutional majority for votes on key issues and it is much better to have some room for manoeuvre in other cases.
Consequently it is highly likely that the desired majority will be created by rallying together several parties. The Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS) or Yabloko will surely be one of them, although the choice of party will remain undecided until election time. Everything will depend on the political situation. If the Kremlin opts for an alternative economic reform strategy, it will choose Yabloko. If it decides that it needs loyalty and mobilised support for the government from liberally minded voters, it will no doubt support the SPS.
The future of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) remains unclear. On the one hand, Zhirinovsky's party has always voted "correctly" on key issues. At the same time it costs too much. The small LDPR cannot ensure many votes and, unlike the SPS or Yabloko, does not contribute to a better reputation for the Kremlin in the West. So is it worth the effort?
As for the favourite party, United Russia, a great deal still needs to be done to mobilize its forces. Its division into factions and groups must be stopped: the party machinery needs to be transformed into a hierarchically streamlined mechanism, where every command from the top is immediately fulfilled in the provinces without gubernatorial whims.
Another difficult task is to win over the protest vote, as victory over the Communist Party would be unrealistic without its support, as only a small proportion of the electorate is satisfied with the current situation. This electorate can be won over by staging demonstrative conflicts with the government, leading the government to "recognise" its mistakes and make a show of trying to improve life for the people.
The Communist Party is the only actor not to fit into the Kremlin election scenario. Its leader, Gennady Zyuganov, and his team promptly saw that only a harsher attitude to the regime can win them additional voters: some are becoming disappointed by the party's insipid stand. This is why the party is being cleansed of all individuals who tended to collaborate more closely with the Kremlin.
The communists may also try to win the share of the electorate that had not voted for the party before. They can use Sergei Glazyev who ran in the gubernatorial elections in Krasnoyarsk, for this purpose. His views are not properly communist. Consequently he does not provoke allergy from the electorate. Reliance on Glazyev will make the Communist Party more independent of the Kremlin scenario.
Would this suffice to prevent the other side from winning the desired high score? If wages are paid on time (the Central Bank has accumulated vast reserves) and pipes stop bursting, and if major terrorist acts by Chechen bandits are prevented, it is highly likely that the Kremlin will succeed in staging its performance called "elections" and attain its goals.
See also:
State Duma elections 2003
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