Evolutions

Posted on September 16, 2013 by

The mayoral election in Moscow turned out to be a mind-boggling event. It was preceded by such analytic coverage that when it actually happened the outcome was almost disappointing. No large-scale falsifications took place – even the independent election watchdog Golos called the vote “unusually fair” – and despite Sergei Sobyanin’s finishing suspiciously close to the 50% mark, there were no riots, let alone a revolution. On the contrary, Alexei Navalny called on his supporters rallying at Bolotnaya Square to go home in peace. The sheer fact that there was a substantial debate on who actually won the election underlines that the election was not exactly the thunderstorm many had hoped it to be. The most sober analysis was provided by Sean Guillory who opined that the election had benefited both Navalny and the Kremlin. Without one clear winner, or rather, one clear loser, the question is: what comes next?

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Reality check

Posted on August 18, 2013 by

The usual summer recess of Russian politics, the so-called “cucumber season” has been hijacked by the ongoing electoral campaign in Moscow. In three weeks’ time, many say, momentous changes await Russian politics. Truth be told, the Moscow mayoral election is certainly the most hard-fought political battle and therefore the most interesting topic since the 2011 Duma election. Still, both people in the leading roles – acting mayor Sergei Sobyanin and anti-corruption blogger a.k.a. opposition heavyweight Alexei Navalny – seem to be somehow underperforming, despite the many tosses and turns of the campaign. Three weeks before the big day, and after the first phase of the pre-electoral period, it is perhaps time to ask where both Navalny and Sobyanin stand relative to what they are really trying to achieve.

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A tale of two politicians

Posted on July 23, 2013 by

Alexei Navalny was preparing to become the newest hero of the Russian opposition, an opposition that is now much wider, stronger, and more diverse and thus has much more opportunities than ten years ago, when Mikhail Khodorkovsky was convicted. When he registered as a mayoral candidate and throughout his trial, he behaved like a showman, showing no fear but uninhibited impertinence and cynicism facing a repressive system, sure about being convicted. He was trying to put the authorities in an awkward position by bringing about a situation where both convicting and letting him go would hurt the regime. At the end, he was both convicted and let go. The main role is clearly Navalny’s. But we should not forget about the man who plays the main supporting role in the saga either: Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Let us be clear: we are witnessing two people aiming at becoming real politicians here.

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The state of patience

Posted on June 16, 2013 by

Undoubtedly, the political highlight of the past week was the founding congress of the All-Russian People’s Front (ONF), or, as it is now called, the People’s Front for Russia, the political project of the deputy head of the Presidential Administration, Vyacheslav Volodin, and a tribute act to its elected chairman, Vladimir Putin. Well, for Russia-watchers, at least. As Kirill Kobrin pointed out in this week’s Power Vertical Podcast, the congress did not manage to draw much attention, even in educated circles interested in politics. Almost concurrently, Sergey Sobyanin, the Mayor of Moscow who resigned on 4 June, announced that he would be running as an independent candidate rather than a candidate of United Russia. This is quite unsurprising: as I have remarked quite a while ago, Sobyanin most likely belongs to the power group led by Volodin. Therefore, the juxtaposition of the announcement and the congress of ONF may as well be symbolic. But are these momentous things, happening in the upper echelons of the elite really important only to those directly affected? The answer is a little more complicated.  

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Unclear fission

Posted on May 31, 2013 by

The dismissal of Vladislav Surkov might just be the beginning of a serious rupture in the Russian political elite. Not that this is of any surprise. Surkov was a very important figure of the past fourteen years and he is the second first-class player of the regime to leave after the equally scandalous exit of Alexei Kudrin in 2011. Not only is it likely that the purge against the liberal and technocratic wing of the elite will continue and speed up, there is increasing talk about and evidence of an institutional split in the political elite. The question is: does this matter at all, and if yes, why?

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Instead of a requiem*

Posted on May 11, 2013 by

Many articles, opinion pieces, alas, even political obituaries have been published in the past couple of days on Vladislav Surkov, the former ‘grey cardinal’ of Russian politics who was swiftly dismissed after a public spat with the Investigative Committee over corruption at the Skolkovo Foundation, one of the flagship projects of Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency. Wait a minute… could it be that I have already read similar articles about Surkov, not very long ago? Indeed: in December 2011, when Surkov, after failing to engineer the Duma elections smoothly enough was demoted to the government from his former position of deputy head of the Presidential Administration, many predicted a short but terminal agony (I did not exclude the possibility either). Nevertheless, what is startlingly similar in these two cases is that the grey cardinal of the Kremlin, the architect of the ‘sovereign democracy’, seemed to lose out on two equally banal and rookie mistakes. Did he really not see the 2011 protests coming? Did he really think that he can get away with a public attack on Putin’s ‘personal police’? What game is Surkov playing, actually? 

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Trial by legitimacy

Posted on April 26, 2013 by

Most Russia-watchers agree that the trial against Alexei Navalny signals the beginning of a new era in Russia. Indeed, there are a lot of similarities with the Khodorkovsky arrest (and trial) in 2003-04, which I will not enumerate in details, and enough differences for this trial to be called the beginning of the end of the Putin era as we know it. It is therefore worth some time to look at the legitimacy situation from a wider angle. What exactly can the Navalny trial do to the political system in Russia?

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