The Dictator's Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy by William J. Dobson Page B
Authors: William J. Dobson
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different brainstorm centers.” But not in the Duma? “I’m afraid there’s no one to really argue with in the Duma. The problem is that in the non-systemic opposition there are not many heads you can really debate with,” says Pavlovsky. “They don’t have any ideas except one: when we were ministers, everything was great.”
The criticism is hardly fair. Opposition parties have to struggle to find anyone willing to give them financing because doing so can have consequences. They must learn to operate under rules that have made it progressively harder to win seats. Their attempts to hold rallies or public events are easily blocked by authorities, and they are completely barred from national television. Pavlovsky himself is creditedwith coming up with the idea of the Public Chamber, an institution that exists to help supplant some of the role a parliament could play. He is considered an important draftsman of the political system as it exists. For him to criticize the opposition for not having ideas is a bit like a doctor complaining he doesn’t have any patients—because he already poisoned them. I tell him his criticism seems unfair since the opposition is forced to spend most of its time simply trying to exist. “You are right. We’ll have to risk [great political competition],” he says. “We’ll just have to make a choice in what we are going to risk and when we are going to risk it.”
But there is little indication that anyone in a position of power is willing to risk much. This fact becomes abundantly clear nearly every time Russians go to the ballot box, because evidence of election rigging quickly follows. As members of the opposition and United Russia explained to me, the problem is bigger than a senior leader ordering that ballot boxes be stuffed; in some ways, the fraud and tampering that go on at election time are now ingrained into Russia’s authoritarian system. Sergei Markov readily admits that the allegations of election tampering are true. But it isn’t because Putin is handing out orders over who should win what percent. “You should understand the mechanism and how it works. Never does Putin say, ‘Get me such and such percent.’ He even says he doesn’t need this. What’s Putin’s interest if [someone] doesn’t have 50 percent but 70 percent? Fifty percent is also the majority, yeah? He doesn’t care,” explains Markov. “But governors and mayors absolutely think about this because it’s a reflection of how popular they are. And that’s why they use it.”
In other words, lower-level officials engage in election fraud because they don’t want to look bad. Whether they are fearful of not delivering the votes for a superior or they are concerned they won’t appear as popular when compared with other officials across the country, the tactic is the same: steal the election. We think of elections within authoritarian regimes as being uncompetitive charades. But that isn’t precisely right. There is competition. It is just between officials jockeying for favor, rather than between ruling party candidates and their opponents.
Perhaps one of the more suspicious recent elections was the most high-profile one: the 2008 election of President Dmitri Medvedev. InPutin’s previous presidential election, he captured 71 percent of the vote. When Medvedev, Putin’s handpicked successor, stood for the vote, he walked away with precisely 70.2 percent. To many, it appeared like a textbook example of Russian election engineering. There had been a desire to make sure that Medvedev came into office with a clear mandate, but no one wanted the protégé’s tally to trump the mentor’s numbers. Markov essentially agrees. “Yeah, it’s not totally controlled,” he says, “but nobody [wants] to give Medvedev a [greater] percentage. I call it self-winding hyper-bureaucratic loyalty. It’s a real problem for United Russia and for dominating parties [elsewhere].”
Igor Mintusov knows what
The criticism is hardly fair. Opposition parties have to struggle to find anyone willing to give them financing because doing so can have consequences. They must learn to operate under rules that have made it progressively harder to win seats. Their attempts to hold rallies or public events are easily blocked by authorities, and they are completely barred from national television. Pavlovsky himself is creditedwith coming up with the idea of the Public Chamber, an institution that exists to help supplant some of the role a parliament could play. He is considered an important draftsman of the political system as it exists. For him to criticize the opposition for not having ideas is a bit like a doctor complaining he doesn’t have any patients—because he already poisoned them. I tell him his criticism seems unfair since the opposition is forced to spend most of its time simply trying to exist. “You are right. We’ll have to risk [great political competition],” he says. “We’ll just have to make a choice in what we are going to risk and when we are going to risk it.”
But there is little indication that anyone in a position of power is willing to risk much. This fact becomes abundantly clear nearly every time Russians go to the ballot box, because evidence of election rigging quickly follows. As members of the opposition and United Russia explained to me, the problem is bigger than a senior leader ordering that ballot boxes be stuffed; in some ways, the fraud and tampering that go on at election time are now ingrained into Russia’s authoritarian system. Sergei Markov readily admits that the allegations of election tampering are true. But it isn’t because Putin is handing out orders over who should win what percent. “You should understand the mechanism and how it works. Never does Putin say, ‘Get me such and such percent.’ He even says he doesn’t need this. What’s Putin’s interest if [someone] doesn’t have 50 percent but 70 percent? Fifty percent is also the majority, yeah? He doesn’t care,” explains Markov. “But governors and mayors absolutely think about this because it’s a reflection of how popular they are. And that’s why they use it.”
In other words, lower-level officials engage in election fraud because they don’t want to look bad. Whether they are fearful of not delivering the votes for a superior or they are concerned they won’t appear as popular when compared with other officials across the country, the tactic is the same: steal the election. We think of elections within authoritarian regimes as being uncompetitive charades. But that isn’t precisely right. There is competition. It is just between officials jockeying for favor, rather than between ruling party candidates and their opponents.
Perhaps one of the more suspicious recent elections was the most high-profile one: the 2008 election of President Dmitri Medvedev. InPutin’s previous presidential election, he captured 71 percent of the vote. When Medvedev, Putin’s handpicked successor, stood for the vote, he walked away with precisely 70.2 percent. To many, it appeared like a textbook example of Russian election engineering. There had been a desire to make sure that Medvedev came into office with a clear mandate, but no one wanted the protégé’s tally to trump the mentor’s numbers. Markov essentially agrees. “Yeah, it’s not totally controlled,” he says, “but nobody [wants] to give Medvedev a [greater] percentage. I call it self-winding hyper-bureaucratic loyalty. It’s a real problem for United Russia and for dominating parties [elsewhere].”
Igor Mintusov knows what
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