Potemkin Election
Somehow, getting the news that the nouveau-Stalinists have fixed an election is slightly more palatable when you get it from the VOA’s Moscow bureau:
Speaking at a political rally on Red Square just hours after polls closed, incumbent President Vladimir Putin said his hand-picked candidate, Dmitri Medvedev, was enjoying a convincing lead in the vote count. He said victory entails enormous responsibility, adding that it will ensure continuation of what he termed the “successful policies of the past eight years.”
The elections are over, says Mr. Putin. He says he expects passions of the campaign to remain in the past and calls on everyone who loves Russia to work for the well-being of the great homeland.
Mr. Putin also said the election was conducted in strict adherence to the constitution and all laws.
However, political analysts have long noted that the campaign lacked passion. Dmitri Medvedev hardly campaigned and did not participate in any debates, which were relegated to six and seven AM time slots, which barely drew an audience.
Two of Medvedev’s opponents are alleging voting violations. Communist Party candidate Gennady Zyuganov, who appears headed for a distant second place finish, claims to have a list of 200 infractions. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, populist candidate of the Liberal Democratic Party is refusing to recognize election results and says he will challenge them in court. The last place finisher, political unknown Andrei Bogdanov, merely said he is glad the election was conducted without any excesses and that there won’t be a revolution.
Russia’s independent voter rights group, Golos, is also reporting widespread polling violations. These include banning the organization’s observers from election precincts across the country, including Saint Petersburg in western Russia, Ufa in the Ural Mountains and Astrakhan near the Caspian Sea. In the city of Rostov-on-Don, the organization reports its monitors were physically threatened, and 40 percent of the precincts in Moscow had no independent observers.
Golos deputy director Grigori Melkonyants told VOA his organization has received telephone calls from teachers, factory workers, university professors and others complaining they were forced to cast ballots. Melkonyants says pressure was applied to increase voter turnout and give the appearance of popular support for the process.
Melkonyants says Golos also has reports of authorities calling people in their homes, and using specially designated individuals at polling places to mark who voted and who did not.
There are numerous reports of people being threatened with loss of pay and even work if they did not vote.
The secretary of the Russian Central Election Commission, Nikolai Konkin, says Sunday’s voter turnout appears to be breaking all records, including the 2004 election of President Putin.
Only about 300 international monitors were on hand to observe an election held across Russia’s 11 time zones. They are expected to announce their observations on Monday. The main European election observer group, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, refused to send a delegation to Russia because it said restrictions imposed by Moscow would prevent meaningful work.
After casting his ballot in Moscow, Dmitri Medvedev told reporters he feels fine. He is expected to assume the presidency - his first elective office - in May.
Here’s more from VOA on the Potemkin election:
On Friday, the last official day of a presidential campaign characterized by a lack of vigorous campaigning by the favorite and his three opponents, outgoing President Vladimir Putin said his successor faces large and complex tasks to keep the country moving forward. Mr. Putin has actively supported his designated choice, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev.
Speaking to a nationwide TV audience, the incumbent said everyone understands the scope and responsibilities that involve the president of a nation as large as Russia. He added that citizens’ trust in their leader is of vital importance to ensure stability in Russia.
Public opinion polls indicate a Medvedev victory is a virtual certainty. His opponents are Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who is seen as representing a discredited past, and the populist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who threatened to punch another candidate, Andrei Bogdanov, during a televised debate. Bogdanov, a complete political unknown, managed to get the required two million signatures to register as a candidate. But former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, an experienced politician and outspoken Kremlin critic, was disqualified for allegedly forging signatures on his petition.
Political analyst Alexander Konovalov of Moscow’s Strategic Assessment Institute, says even Medvedev opponents do not expect to win.
The opposition candidates, says Konovalov, are like the dancing girls on stage behind a pop singer; they make for better appreciation of the music, but are all in the background.
Konovalov notes that Russia has never held an election according to routine constitutional rules.
They have been somewhat of a creative endeavor, says the analyst, beginning with closed meetings of the Communist Party Central Committee in Soviet times, and ending with the selection of a designated successor in this election.
President Putin defended candidate Medvedev’s decision not to participate in debates, saying people are pleased with their achievements and plans, which need no further discussion. But observer Andrei Kortunov of the Eurasia Foundation in Moscow says there is always room for criticism, because there are no limits on improvement.
Kortunov says a competitive political environment and any circulation of alternative ideas is a plus, not a minus. If the authorities do not want that, he notes, it represents poor thinking or fear that alternative ideas may be more appealing.
Another frustrated presidential candidacy is that of former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, whose representatives said in December that authorities pressured landlords not to rent him a hall for a nominating convention. Kasparov is a leader of an opposition coalition known as “The Other Russia.” It has announced protests on Monday in dozens of regions throughout Russia against what it says is the unconstitutional transfer of power to Dmitri Medvedev. Russian authorities have frequently used force to disperse previous demonstrations by The Other Russia.
Topics: Russia
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:35 pm on Sunday, March 2, 2008
One Response to “Potemkin Election”
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March 3rd, 2008 at 11:34 am
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.