Grigory Yavlinsky’s web-site, 30.06.2020

Photo: a voting station.

A “popular vote” to amend the Constitution is like a rape. That is, it resembles coercing into something that you initially did not want and what should not have happened, and the longer and more persistently they persuade you, the more disgusting it becomes. Now people, even if they vote, do not understand at all why they need it, and, certainly, they feel cheating.

This happens not the first time in the recent history of Russia. Any parallels are imperfect, but it is impossible not to recall the referendum on the preservation of the USSR on March 17, 1991: the desired result was obtained, but after five months there was a coup d’etat, and then there were the Belovezh Accords [on the dissolution of the USSR signed by the heads of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus]. For all this we are now paying with bloodshed in Donbass.

Also there was an All-Russian referendum on April 25, 1993, which made it into history due to the propaganda slogan “Yes – Yes – No – Yes”. Then, despite all the distortions and manipulations, a public request was formed for the responsibility of the authorities and a call for search for a common language between its branches. However, the Kremlin group ignored this, seeing in the result only what it originally needed, and six months later it all ended in a bloody clash with hundreds of victims [the constitutional crisis of 1993 as a political stand-off between President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian parliament that was resolved by military force].

Both in 1991 and 1993, the authorities, seeking to get a concrete result, shamelessly used lies, manipulations, coercion, intimidation, insane advertising and shows with the participation of movie and pop stars. If then the people had not been raped, but would have engaged in a dialogue in search of understanding, if the authorities had tried to listen to the society, one could have found a reasonable way out of the critical situation and avoid the tragic consequences.

There is such a way out in today’s situation: fair and competitive elections of a new President no later than 2024, real democratisation of the political system, rule of law, independence of the court, that is, everything that is the norm for modern life and a manifestation of real respect for citizens. But it is clear that none of this will happen.

Photo: Organisation of “voting” on Vladimir Putin’s constitutional amendments.

What is happening in Russia is an insult to public intelligence: the humiliating actions of the authorities against citizens, hurting the sense of human dignity and aimed at lowering self-esteem. Perhaps this is not yet obvious to everyone, but very soon people will realise this and will not forgive it.

The stupid story invented by the authorities about how two officers of the Russian Military Intelligence Service or sports food dealers went to “study the Salisbury cathedral”, where, “by coincidence”,  Mr.Skripal, former officer of the Russian Military Intelligence Service was “poisoned” on the same days, was insulting to public intelligence. And Putin personally commented on all this nonsense. How stupid and insulting to society it looked!

The doping scandal was the same insult for Russian citizens – not only the state’s machinations with the tests of Russian athletes, but also the endless and obvious lies of senior officials. This all resulted in the humiliating removal of our country from participation in the Olympics and other major sporting competitions.

A similar effect is produced by the conclusion of the Constitutional Court of the RF on Putin’s amendments – an absurd text justifying the refusal of the change of power by the presence in Russia of “developed parliamentarism, effective justice and separation of powers”.

Now it has come to a “popular vote”. The head of the Central Electoral Commission compared a package voting on the proposed changes with ordering of a set business lunch: take it all or leave it. Who is this counted on? What does Mrs. Pamfilova take Russian citizens for? And who does she think she is?

Not only is the Putin’s plebiscite procedure deliberately designed in such a way that control over the casting and counting of votes is virtually impossible, but the authorities have also created the broadest opportunities for “drawing” any results: one can vote pre-term and at home without any explanation, one can vote remotely via the Internet (in Moscow and the Nizhny Novgorod region), it is possible to vote in tents in the street, it is possible to vote without registration of passport data. The revelations of the key agents of the constitutional process expose the position of the authorities, which regard the plebiscite is a technical procedure that does envisage a failure. The amendments have already been adopted. The State Duma has been already stamping laws with regard to amendments and with references to them, and a little book with a new text [of the Constitution] is already sold in book stores.

Certainly, one should not participate in such a mocking “event”.

Photo: a voting station in a car trunk. 

All this has been said more many times. But the farther, the more clear it is that the law, the country, and the people are demonstrably mocked at: “We know how to make you agree with everything we want – with taking away of your pensions, swamping the regions with garbage imported from Moscow, and self-isolation without subsistence means”. And then – with thousands of new [COVID] cases a day – parades and festivities at “the holiday of resetting of presidential terms” are organised in a snap. The health and lives of people do not matter much: the quarantine measures were quickly canceled so that to ensure the turnout at the plebiscite.

Having raped the society, the authorities will even more aggressively impose their agenda after July 1, believing that our people are stupid and do not understand anything.

But one should not think like that about the people in the country of Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Sooner or later, the authorities will see it for themselves, and then they will have a really bad time.

An insult to public intelligence will be remembered for a long time. It is true that Russian society was very seriously affected by the Bolshevik crimes of the 20th century, the reformist idiocy of the 1990s and Putin’s authoritarianism of the past two decades. However, this does not rule out that many smart people live in our country who will not forgive these bullying.

The “popular vote” on the amendments runs counter to the essence of modern life and the country’s historical perspective. The meanings of the third decade of the 21st century are completely different, and certainly lie neither in a lifelong super-authoritarian rule and nor in a “separate civilisation” that opposes the whole world.

Therefore, the result of the plebiscite of 2020 will be the same as that of the referenda in 1991 and 1993. One can force people to vote, one can publish any results. But after some time, a historical pattern will surely break its way through.  Most likely, this road will be the most crooked and ugly of all possible.

Once again in Russian history, the authorities underestimate the people, insult them, not believing in their mind and their creative abilities. The idea of ​​people as cattle, needing only entertainment and handouts, widens the gap between the power and the people, makes the abyss insurmountable. No matter what the results of the “popular vote” are announced, people will act in accordance with their interests, which in principle do not coincide with the interests and motives of the organisers and performers of the “reset”.

Source 

Grigory Yavlinsky

Is Chairman of the Federal Political Committee of the Russian United Democratic Party YABLOKO, Vice President of Liberal International, PhD in Economics, Professor of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.