Elections ahead – Part IV

Posted on March 9, 2021 by

Six months before this year’s Duma election Russia’s political landscape is in flux. The future of “smart voting” remains a factor of uncertainty. Shifts in public opinion, the Kremlin’s new red lines and how the systemic opposition has reacted to these, however, provide some clues about the political space that will be contested in the coming months.

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NY Dispatches: Russia and the Council of Europe, again

Posted on March 3, 2021 by

Petr Tolstoy, the vice-speaker of the State Duma said this week that Russia should “revisit its role” in the Council of Europe and consider leaving it, should the CoE initiate a procedure against Russia due to the jailing of Alexey Navalny. Tolstoy added that Russia could, in this case, create its own version of the European Court of Human Rights. This is a bluff and the only good answer is for the Council of Europe to call it.

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Three tales from the regions

Posted on February 22, 2021 by

In Ernest Hemingway’s novel, “The Sun Also Rises”, a character, Mike is asked how he went bankrupt. He answers: “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” This is also how political change often happens. Small-scale, incremental changes that go unnoticed prepare the ground for something momentous further down the road. It can therefore be interesting to look at the small cracks. Let me share three stories from the past weeks from three Russian regions, which hold a series of lessons about the decay of Russia’s political system and the chances of a widening opposition movement.

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Elections ahead – Part III

Posted on February 11, 2021 by

Navalny’s campaign put a pause on protests and will likely focus on this year’s Duma election – which is expected to be heavily rigged – even as the leaders of loyal opposition parties are scrambling to assure the Kremlin that they are not seeking cooperation with Navalny’s team. This might look like a defeat, but the Duma election is important and systemic opposition parties are facing more dilemmas than their leaders will admit.

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The plague year of the regions

Posted on February 4, 2021 by

The pandemic year of 2020 battered regional budgets. Some went through a double crisis due to the oil slump in the first half of the year. However, official figures released in January show a somewhat rosier picture than many feared. But aggregate numbers hide significant disparities between various regions, as well as the fact that the more reassuring numbers came at a price: the federal government used the crisis to tighten its grip on regions’ finances and thus also their politics.

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NY Dispatches: Putin reacts

Posted on January 26, 2021 by

According to Alexei Navalny’s campaign the protests that started on 23 January will continue this week. One thing that protesters have already achieved is forcing Vladimir Putin to address the accusations in Navalny investigation into his ill-gotten wealth, in person. This is a remarkable shift, and it raises important questions about the Kremlin’s intentions and strategy.

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Elections ahead – Part II

Posted on January 19, 2021 by

A week ago, I looked at regional electoral data to find out what these suggest about the electoral chances of United Russia in this year’s legislative election. I concluded that even with a popularity of under 30 percent nation-wide the party can preserve its two-thirds constitutional supermajority due to single-mandate districts with a first-past-the-post system and widespread election rigging. I added, however, that Alexey Navalny’s “smart voting” scheme risked upsetting this strategy, by forcing the authorities either to make concessions towards the parties of the “systemic” opposition or to commit significantly more egregious rigging, which in turn raises the risk of protests. Below I am taking a deeper dive into single-mandate districts and recount three stories from the past week that I think illustrate very well the concerns of the Kremlin. Bear with me, at the end of it Navalny will get another mention.  

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