Let me answer all the questions about elections and "elections": how to view them and what to do about them.
First, a general overview of the situation as I see it:
By 2011, the authorities (Putin) had created a closed party system (registering a new party was completely impossible), in which there was one big, powerful United Russia and several weak opposition parties. The combination of those parties’ weakness and election fraud guaranteed the Kremlin a stable majority in the State Duma and in the legislatures of all federal subjects (regions) of Russia. That allowed Putin to introduce any laws he wanted, while the dummies from United Russia voted them through. Whatever anyone may say, this simple mechanism is the foundation of the current regime.
In the 2011 elections, we countered the Kremlin’s plan with our own two-part strategy: a) "United Russia is the party of crooks and thieves" b) Vote for any party except United Russia. That meant we stopped criticizing the weak opposition parties, gave them a boost, and concentrated our efforts on preventing United Russia and Putin from getting 51% in the Duma.
That strategy produced certain results: once the Kremlin riffraff realized it really was losing that 51%, and that the "weak opposition" would immediately start speaking differently, they resorted to unprecedented fraud in the big cities to make up the missing 7–8%. First and foremost in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The blatant nature of the fraud, and the announced results in which Moscow supposedly turned out to be more pro–United Russia than the provinces, triggered a wave of protests and demonstrations on a scale not seen since the early 1990s.
Frightened by the demonstrations, Putin, through Medvedev, announced political reform: gubernatorial elections and free party registration. To this they added various PR gimmicks, like video cameras at polling stations.
Before long, the Kremlin realized that even half-hearted political reform and a little playacting with "almost fair elections" would simply lead to them losing all those elections. And no amount of TV propaganda would save them.
After waiting for the protest wave to die down naturally, the authorities launched counter-reforms: gubernatorial elections were effectively abolished again; real parties were denied registration; censorship in the media and on the internet intensified; and endless varieties of "anti-extremist" amendments were introduced.
The last attempt to play at democracy in big-city mayoral elections—when Putin, despite all his impressive polling numbers, lost in Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, and Petrozavodsk, and ran into major trouble in Moscow, where a runoff was avoided only through vote manipulation—led the authorities (Putin) to develop a new political tactic. I’m writing this post to explain it more clearly.
What requirements does Putin impose on these "new-type elections"? Here they are:
What has the Kremlin done to make these rules work? A harsh, demonstrative crackdown on all genuinely oppositional figures within the so-called systemic opposition (Gudkov’s dismissal) has been accompanied by the co-optation of the leadership of the "systemic opposition" and guarantees that party coffers will stay funded.
The "exclusivity pact." Parties are subjected to a prohibitive signature-gathering barrier, but it does not apply to those willing to serve, flatter, and criticize less. That is why we will not see anything like the A Just Russia politicians of 2011–12, with white ribbons and slogans about the "party of crooks and thieves."
The role of "political proxies" is assigned to United Russia, the Communist Party, the LDPR, A Just Russia, and Yabloko. Want to run in an election without collecting signatures that are impossible to collect? Get down on one knee and repeat our articles of faith: for some it’s Stalin, for others Yavlinsky.
A ban on election participation for people with criminal convictions. This measure was invented specifically for me, but it can be used against anyone they don’t want on the ballot yet don’t want to deny registration to outright. They quickly fabricate a case, hand down a suspended or real sentence—and that’s it, the person will never appear on the ballot.
A de facto ban on party registration. It affects far more than just the Progress Party. The NDP, for example, was recently stripped of its registration.
Once these measures are in place, the new strategy is easy to implement. Its essence can be summed up in Vladimir Putin’s informal message to all of us: "I will choose your opposition candidate for you, and you can rally around that person and try to win."
These new "Vladimir Putin election rules" have now fully taken shape. We can see them in full in the Moscow City Duma elections, and even more clearly in the St. Petersburg gubernatorial election.
- all strong candidates are simply barred from the election;
the "proxy parties" are allowed to nominate candidates who can never hope not just to win, but even to get more than 5–10%;
- and with an ironic smile, they wait for us to say, "vote for anyone against so-and-so."
In St. Petersburg, strong candidate Dmitriyeva was not allowed to run, and the remaining candidates are just a collection of random oddballs. The Wikipedia page about this election is very telling:
I have 146 political disagreements with Dmitriyeva, but the very idea that this can be called an election is laughable: she, with an initial rating of 14%, failed to pass the "pre-election filter," while some Petrov and Bikbayev from some "Rodina" and the "Greens" did pass.
So what are we supposed to do now? Vote for anyone against Poltavchenko? Or search among four puppets for the least puppet-like one and rally around that person? All while repeating the line that going to the polls is valuable in itself.
And these candidates are not only incapable of defeating the very weak Poltavchenko—they won’t even say anything worthwhile during the campaign.
What we need from elections is: 1) victory for our candidate; 2) if not victory, then high-quality campaigning aimed at fighting this regime. We need to say everything that under normal conditions cannot be said openly (or would not be heard).
Neither of those conditions will be met, but the next day we’ll hear on television: "Opposition candidate Irina Petrova-Bikbayeva, whom voters were urged to support as an alternative to Poltavchenko, received 4.5%. Our opposition is doing a poor job."
The same is true of the elections in Moscow. Only here, candidates were not just removed—they were pressured with criminal cases. Jankauskas is under house arrest for absolutely nothing, Lyaskin is under investigation, and Ashurkov has been forced to leave.
One would think that under these conditions the Communist Party and Yabloko would have every reason to put their strongest candidates on their lists. But exactly the opposite happened. Yes, there are some very good people on those lists—I would very much like to see Babushkin, Klychkov, Galyamina, Borshchev, Gryaznova, Yengalycheva, and others become deputies—but overall these are lists of hopelessness and уныние (gloom/despair).
The "proxy parties" are honoring their side of the deal and keeping anyone who could actually win out of the election. Most disgusting of all, they even sidelined their own promising party members as part of these "arrangements": Zyuganov’s grandson was guaranteed election, while Klychkov—who is badly needed in the Moscow City Duma—may well lose, because he was placed in a district with former prefect Zotov, which guarantees a fantastic level of fraud.
The profile of the candidate who is allowed to take part in elections has also now been fully defined. It is especially clear in the case of the Civic Platform candidates, who supposedly "collected signatures and cleared the barrier," as well as some others. Here are the main signs by which these puppet-candidates can be identified without fail. They all—and this is actually quite funny—speak straight from the same script:
It doesn’t matter which candidate I quoted here. Look at interviews with any self-nominated candidates who were admitted to the election by the highest grace, and you’ll see that they repeat all these talking points in one variation or another.
So what now? Shall we rally around the ones they left us?
Jankauskas was put under arrest—no matter, we’ll unite around whoever is left. Ashurkov was forced out—fine, there’s still someone there, let’s vote for that person. Romanova was removed over signatures—fine again, there are still some names on the ballot, we’ll find someone to vote for.
The main reason I’m writing this post is to say to everyone who still believes in "vote for anyone against": my friends, the time of simple strategies is over; this no longer works.
As the author of that formula, I say this: there is nothing more foolish than fighting Putin-2014 with our 2011 ideas.
Life does not stand still. They figured out long ago how to counter this. We will face difficult decisions when our candidate is barred from the election and replaced with someone who can at least be discussed.
Or an even trickier case: for example, the St. Petersburg gubernatorial election should absolutely be boycotted. But local council elections are being held at the same time. Many strong candidates were removed from those races too (for example, the head of the St. Petersburg Anti-Corruption Foundation), but many remained. Declaring a total boycott would be a gift to Poltavchenko. So we will have to act cleverly—vote here, but not there.
I’ll repeat: there will be no more simple strategies that can be turned into a slogan.
Where real candidates have been barred from the election and a fake substitute has been planted, boycott without hesitation. If there is a real candidate in your district with a genuine chance of winning, go and vote for that person. The St. Petersburg Anti-Corruption Foundation has created a convenient service for voters, where you can see who is running in your district and decide what you personally should do.
If the elections are combined and held at different levels, no one can give you a universal answer. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.
One universal piece of advice for those writing to me about Moscow saying, "Alexei, I don’t know whom to vote for in the Moscow City Duma election, please tell me": if you don’t know yourself, that is a sure sign that you should boycott.
Right now we should be taking a moral position rather than a purely tactical political one. For me, going to the Moscow City Duma election after my comrades were pushed out of it through criminal prosecution is immoral. That is why I personally am boycotting the fraudulent procedure called the "Moscow City Duma election."
If we now happily rush off to vote, we will only prove all those crooks like Sobyanin and Rakova right: we removed their candidates, and they still ran to the polls anyway.
That means we will see the same thing in the State Duma elections. In every promising district, they will select "opposition" candidates with no chance of winning, keep everyone else out, and then invite us to rally "around what’s available."
I do not want to rally around what’s available. For me, elections are not just about voting. If my candidate is not allowed to take part, that is a crime and a falsification—worse than stuffing ballots into the box.
Now let me switch to a frequently asked questions format:
Alexei, Alexei, your position is inconsistent. In 2011 you were against a boycott, and in the mayoral election you were against a boycott, but now you support one—why? That’s not correct. I believed then, and still believe now, that a boycott is a normal election strategy. It’s just that in 2011 it would have been a weak one. The goal then was different—to push United Russia below 51%. We achieved that. As for the mayoral election, we stated very clearly from the start: if I were not registered, we would still campaign, but in favor of a boycott. The candidates were not registered this time, so it’s a boycott.
- Alexei, Alexei, aren’t you basically proposing some kind of "nah-nah" strategy, even though you were always against it? Why? The "nah-nah" strategy consists of spoiling ballots. I believed then, and still believe now, that it is pointless. If you do not recognize the election, then you boycott it: you don’t go, and you urge everyone else not to go either. If you do go, then you should vote.
- Alexei, Alexei, but among these candidates Putin has assigned us, there are some good people, aren’t there? Is it really their fault? Of course there are some good people. And no, it isn’t their fault, and I can imagine how upsetting it is for them to read this post. They are not the ones who put Jankauskas under arrest. They need us to turn out to the polling stations in large numbers. But that is exactly the trick of Putin’s new strategy: they split us. Either we vote and thereby encourage new arrests of new Jankauskases, or we do not vote and reduce the already slim chances of those who were registered. As I said, this is where we need to take a moral position and remember that, in the end, we are not fighting so that Ivanov or Petrov becomes a deputy, but so that Russia has law, order, and honest courts—so that no one is thrown under arrest for no reason.
- Alexei, Alexei, but surely we could all throw ourselves into it—you write an inspiring post, we get energized, recreate the enthusiasm of last year’s campaign, get a couple of people into the Moscow City Duma—wouldn’t that still be better? If I could press a button marked "switch on popular enthusiasm," that would be great—but there is no such button. Let me explain with a simple example: a huge number of well-known, decent people urged everyone to go vote in the Moscow mayoral election. Try finding even 3 or 4 "celebrities" or opinion leaders now who are urging people to vote in the Moscow City Duma election. There aren’t any. I have nothing to do with that; they know and understand all this better than I do. They don’t need specific deputies as such—they judge from a moral standpoint and do not recognize these elections. They may be tactfully silent, but they certainly do not want to call anyone to the polls. In the end, this is a pretty simple thing: telling the difference between political struggle and imitation. They can tell the difference, and no blog post will persuade them otherwise.
- Alexei, Alexei, it’s still not clear why we can’t now say "anyone but the United Russia candidate"—let them at least get a lower result? We already tried that. It didn’t work. Remember Putin’s 2012 election? He chose his own opponents. Prokhorov was registered in exactly the same way some Moscow City Duma candidates are now—he didn’t collect signatures, but somehow produced mysterious boxes supposedly containing them. We declared "anyone but Putin"—myself included. And what came of it? The protest vote was artificially consolidated around Prokhorov, who said in the debates, "I’m not the opposition, I’m an alternative; I don’t criticize, I propose," along with all the other scripted lines mentioned above. He got 20% in Moscow and 2% in Norilsk. He announced he was creating a party, and when everything was banned for him, he disappeared from the scene. We got neither victory nor the words the candidates should have spoken to the whole country. There is a huge difference between elections by party list, where such a strategy is possible, and elections of individual candidates. By taking a vote away from United Russia, you give it to the Communist Party, which can use it. But a candidate needs a majority or a runoff to win. So when actual people are being elected, the question of who is allowed to run is crucial.
To sum up: we want to take part in elections. We are spending enormous effort on registering a party. We are ready to support candidates. We have a program, and we have support. We can win. But if our candidates are removed and barred from running, we cannot recognize that as an election. We want to decide for ourselves whom to rally around; we do not need a leftover principle approach. Enough living by 2011 strategies. Right now we need to be more flexible and make a separate decision in each specific case. Where it is right to boycott an election, it should be boycotted.
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