Mikhail Kasyanov, the only candidate likely to produce a serious challenge to Vladimir Putin’s chosen successor as president, Dmitry Medvedev, has been banned from standing by the Russian Central Election Commission on the grounds that too many signatures on his candidacy form were fraudulent. Kasyanov, in dismissing the finding, has warned that Russia has “finally gone on the slippery slope to totalitarianism”.
Yet it could be argued that Russia has never really climbed up the “slippery slope” away from the totalitarian and absolute rule, first of its czars and then of its Soviet leaders. Even with the collapse of communism in 1991 and the arrival of democratic politics with the election of Boris Yeltsin, the shades of absolute power did not go away. In 1993, Yeltsin pushed through the approval of a new constitution which gave the president sweeping powers. Yeltsin, once a hero for facing down the attempted Communist coup of 1991, proved to be a deeply flawed and weak leader. The privatization of huge swathes of state industry was a disgrace from which a handful of Kremlin cronies benefited in an atmosphere of rising corruption and mafia brigandage. Economic mismanagement led to the 1998 collapse of the ruble which wiped out the savings of millions of Russians.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Black Sea fleet rusted, its army was starved of funds and its nuclear deterrent deteriorated for lack of maintenance. Perhaps, the final humiliation came with the loss in the Barents Sea of the giant nuclear submarine Kursk in 2000, shortly after Putin was elected Yeltsin’s successor. Putin set about restoring Russia’s pride, reversing many economic reforms and refocusing attention of the old Soviet military-industrial complex. His renationalization of Gazprom and Lukoil preceded the strengthening of oil prices which, in turn, has allowed the Kremlin to take a more independent and, to American alarm, more confrontational role on the world stage.
The return of a centralized state has been political as well as economic. Powerful provincial governors are now appointed by Moscow, not elected locally and parliament, the Duma, the scene of vigorous opposition in the Yeltsin years, has become notably quiescent. Nor is widespread media criticism now possible. Leading journalists have been murdered and the nascent independent press and media muzzled. It does not make an attractive record for a “democratic” state.
Yet Putin is a hugely popular leader because of the way he has rebuilt Russia’s image in the world. Time and again, ordinary people will say that the quality they most admire in him is his “strength”. And herein lies the irony. Had Putin sought to change the constitution to permit himself a third term, voters would probably have approved in droves. Likewise, his selected successor Medvedev is almost certain to win handsomely in March, because he is Putin’s man. Why, therefore, should not Kasyanov’s challenge been allowed to go ahead because it would only have added to the legitimacy of Medvedev’s victory? The answer seems to be that Putin fears political debate and challenge. Herein lies the blind spot and weakness of all Russia’s past absolute rulers.
