After the Russian Elections
No Apocalypse Yet
by ISRAEL SHAMIR
Moscow
The
anticipated apocalypse did not come to pass. The
presidential election in Russia ran its course, Putin
was duly elected, and to the great astonishment of the
opposition, multimillion crowds demanding the blood of
the tyrant did not materialize. Only some 15,000
protesters gathered in central Moscow and dispersed
peacefully within two hours. Only a remaining hundred
hardcore activists were resolved “to stay until Putin
goes” in the frozen city fountain. They were removed by
police, charged and released. What a flop!

An
inspired spokesperson of the Whites, a returnee from New
York Masha Gessen, self-described “Jewish Lesbian, a
sworn enemy of the Putin regime”, a blogger for the NY
Times, “extremely influential”, according to Newsweek,
who has just published with Riverhead a book
prophesying the swift fall of Putin, predicted (or
called for) 200,000 angry Russians tearing down the
walls of Kremlin and washing with blood the streets on
March 5. Rarely has a forecast failed so profoundly.
The
last rally had its funny moments. The radicals came with
quite obscene slogans against Putin and against his
electorate. They booed down almost everybody including
the billionaire oligarch Mr Prokhorov who tried his luck
with them. It was rather cold, almost 20 degrees F
(-6°C), and the call of Udaltsov and Navalny to stay put
was met with visible disbelief. Navalny looked extremely
unhappy; he spoke of the need to build a movement from
scratch. The police behaved very well; even the
participants lauded its polite and respectful attitude.
US cops could take a lesson from Moscow riot police how
to be cool.
Until it happened, nobody was sure of the outcome.
Opposition leaders I asked privately told me that they
didn’t know; the government wasn’t sure and brought in
thousands of troops and riot police, menacingly located
in the backyards, happily remaining uncalled for. City
hall permitted all the rallies applied for, at the time
and place they asked; there were no logistic problems,
the location of the main opposition demo was in Pushkin
square, the Moscow equivalent of Times Square in New
York. All in vain: people did not come.
They
were sobered by the vote. Some 40,000 observers drafted
from all walks of life were stationed at the booths;
there were web-cameras checking every corner near the
booths for possible fraud. Relatively open-minded
observers had had a chance to see that in transparent
elections people did vote for Putin. Not overwhelmingly
(64 per cent is not a North Korean kind of result), but
convincingly. A few liberal bloggers had a change of
heart and sobbingly admitted that they had witnessed
fair elections and heard vox populi. For this
reason, calls by Navalny, Yashin, Udaltsov and other
White leaders to declare the vote “illegitimate” fell on
deaf ears.
Only
a few hardcore activists kept claiming that the vote was
fraudulent; other Whites lamented that they had to share
this planet with such a rabble. The deputy chief editor
of the main White broadcaster Echo Moskvy, Vladimir
Varfolomeev, wrote in his blog that “the social base of
Putin regime, 40 to 50 million Russians, has to be
eliminated” for democracy to win. This remark was widely
interpreted as a call for genocide. Other Whites
disparagingly called the Putin electorate “sprats” and
other endearing terms; one or two declared their
intention to emigrate to Israel. They plan for more
rallies, but the feeling is that the orange bubble has
burst.
The
activists are heart-broken, dashed in their
expectations. Their cause, that of fair elections, is
dead. Demonization of Putin did not work; to the
contrary, it pushed many stubborn Russians back into the
fold. Now they look for a new cause, and it seems they
have chosen confrontation with the church. After the
failure, their first action was in support of four
punk-rockers who made a nuisance of themselves in a
Moscow cathedral. This is not likely to endear them to
the broad masses, as the Russians are quite devout to
their national church.
The
communists did rather well, but their tactics in the
aftermath of the elections were confusing and
lacklustre. Mr Zuganov chose neither to recognize nor
congratulate Mr Putin; the Party called for a rally but
did not mobilize its cadres and it flopped, for the
ordinary Communists did not understand the message.
Probably a new person at the helm of the party instead
of tired Mr Zuganov will be able to change things in
time for the next elections.
Moscow is different
Analysis of the election results shows that Moscow voted
differently from the rest of the country. Russia’s
social disparity was translated into electoral numbers
very neatly. Elsewhere, second place was taken by the
Communist contender Mr Gennady Zuganov (18 per cent); in
Moscow it was ceded by the Communists in favour of the
bon-vivant oligarch Mr Mikhail Prokhorov who received a
very robust 20 per cent as opposed to 7 per cent in
Russia generally.
Even
more revealing were the results in separate electoral
districts: the more well-to-do neighborhoods of Moscow
voted handsomely for Prokhorov, in the best and most
expensive areas he got up to 40 per cent of the vote.
Prokhorov and his people called for a neoliberal agenda,
less taxation for business, longer working hours,
dismantling of the remnants of social protection
including central heating that makes Russian homes so
warm in the winter. Naturally he could not hope to win
the average Russian heart, but the well-heeled voted for
him, though they made their fortunes under Putin.
Putin brought this result upon himself: he allowed
Moscow to become the vortex of money flows. More money
comes and stays in Moscow than in the rest of Russia.
Once, Moscow had a big working class population, many
factories, good conditions for workers, for the workers
were the mainstay of the Soviet regime. But for last 20
years Moscow has been deindustrialised, factories
closed, the working class shrunk, while the locals made
a killing renting out their state-provided apartments.
The
results of elections in Moscow could have been even
worse for Putin but for the bussing of voters from
industrial townships. The bussed voters were also
citizens of Russia and the bussing did not change the
overall results; it changed the results for separate
districts, and so it obscured the dangerous disparity
between Moscow and the rest of the country. In some
expensive areas of Moscow where little if any bussing
took place, Prokhorov gathered almost as many votes as
Putin. In London and Tel Aviv, where many Russian
citizens voted, Prokhorov won hands down, and Putin was
nowhere.
If
Putin wants to remain in power, he must do something
about Moscow. The disparity between Moscow and the
country has to be equalized. The capital city and its
inhabitants are hated by the country folk, and this
feeling could allow Putin to shift resources away from
this too-rich city.
His
bigger problem is with the oligarchs. Will he try to fit
their agenda? This is a distinct possibility. Though at
the time of upsurge and hate-Putin rallies, he appealed
to the patriotism of activists and intellectuals, and
they saved him by the miracle at the Poklonnaya Mount,
they are far from certain that he will not forget them
in the time of his victory. Ditto Mr Rogozin, the fiery
nationalist, who was brought home from honorary exile in
Brussels. People wonder whether Putin will keep him now.
However, there is a possibility that he will do what the
oligarchs fear, namely deal with offshoring and the
dishonest dealing of the super-rich. John Helmer, an
oldtimer journalist in Moscow with Asia Times,
wrote
enthusiastically of Putin’s directive VP-P13-9308 of
December 28, 2011 available
here; he described
it “the oligarch killer”. Putin has demanded from CEOs
and managers of the state-owned giants that they
disclose, in Helmer’s words:
“networks of affiliation between officials and
beneficiaries; wives, children and other family members
or nominees who have been placed in concealed trusts and
bag-holding positions; and chains of offshore cashflows.
The state companies include Rosatom, the uranium mining
and uranium fuel holding company; Inter RAO UES, the
electricity holding company; RusdHydro, the
hydroelectric power producer; Irkutskenergo, a southeast
regional supplier of electricity; Gazprom; Transneft,
the oil pipeline company; Sovcomflot, the state shipping
company; Russian Railways; Aeroflot; Rostelecom; and the
three state banks – Sberbank, VTB and Vnesheconombank.”
Surprisingly little was written about this in the media
before the elections, though any sign of an attack on
oligarchs would have brought in extra millions of voters
to Putin. There were a couple of reports on TV, and then
the matter disappeared from public view. Will Putin
continue this struggle against the CEOs who deal with
state property in the interests of their families? It is
hard to predict whether in the end Putin will dare to
fight the oligarchs or will prefer to accommodate them.
If
he wants to survive politically, he will have to
implement the national agenda, confront the oligarchs,
curb the creative class, provide support to those who
supported him. But Putin is a master of compromise; he
takes decisive action only if necessary. He will be
encumbered with Mr Dmitri Medvedev as his prime
minister, an extremely inauspicious appointment he could
not escape. Though loyal to Putin personally, he is not
a good executive. Still it would be difficult to drop
him unless he really makes a mess of things.
Russia faces fateful years. There is the danger of an
Israeli-American war against Iran; and Iran is Russia’s
neighbour and a friend. Syria, though in much better
shape after the taking of Homs, is still in trouble,
and Syria is the Russian foothold in the Middle East.
The future of the Euro and the EC is doubtful, while
Europe is Russia’s biggest trading partner. The US is
in a presidential election year , a time when its
politicians vie with each other to be tougher to the
world – and to Russia. In a way, it’s a relief that
this important country is in Mr Putin’s hands.