In Russia, a democratic message blurred
SEVERAL ATTEMPTS by the alliance known as Another Russia to organize protest rallies in Russia's most populous cities, including the recent fiascoes in Moscow and St. Petersburg, have revealed an indisputable truth - those who call themselves the liberal opposition in Russia are neither competent nor popular.
Their most respectable showing last summer garnered at most 5,000 participants. Since then, these numbers have dwindled into the hundreds, with local police officers and foreign journalists usually far outnumbering the actual demonstrators.
Why have Russia's self-proclaimed liberals done so badly at attracting popular support? Granted, the country's booming economy hasn't made their arguments for removing Vladimir Putin an easy one. Still, with potential support of up to 40 percent, well-known cultural and political figures in their corner, and plenty of money from business elites, it is astonishing how badly the liberals have performed.
Part of the reason goes back to an early decision to enter into alliances that severely tarnished the reputation of many of Russia's leading liberal politicians. In a misguided effort to gain more visibility, several moderate politicians - including Vladimir Ryzhkov, Irina Khakamada, Grigory Yavlinsky, Mikhail Kasyanov, and Boris Nemtsov - embraced two highly questionable figures: the entrepreneur/chess champion Garry Kasparov, who, as a former member of the advisory council of the US-based Center for Security Policy, has longstanding ties to a number of vociferously anti-Russian American neo-conservatives, and Eduard Limonov, the leader of the ethno-nationalist National Bolshevik Party.
Limonov, who has called for the use of "Serbian tactics" to regain regions of the former Soviet Union with large Russian populations, is much more than an "accidental ally" of the liberals, as The
While some former allies, including Yavlinksy and Kasyanov, have since parted company with Another Russia, others - like Kasparov, Ryzhkov, and Nemtsov - continue to justify the alliance, with its prominence in the West, as necessary to circumvent the Kremlin's control of the media. But it is hard to believe that there are many people in Russia who have no inkling of what this opposition stands for. More than a quarter of the population has regular access to the Internet, which remains totally unfiltered in Russia, and 13 percent deem it their main source of information - double that in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The problem, it seems, is not that the opposition cannot get its message to the Russian public - nor even the message itself. The problem is with the messengers, who have managed to alienate their natural constituency - Russia's growing middle class.
What you would do if faced with the following choice: a political movement that unites a former chess champion whose family resides overseas, a former prime minister popularly nicknamed "Misha 2 percent" because of alleged kickbacks for authorizing government-backed loans to private firms, and an ex-punk rocker released from prison a few years ago who vows to restore the Russian empire by any means necessary; or the party of Vladimir Putin, which has pledged to continue the policies that have increased average salaries from $81 a month to $550 a month, and which has dramatically increased social spending and reduced the poverty level from 27 percent to 15 percent.
Then there's the damage done by the opposition's apparent contempt for the very people whose support it seeks. Boris Berezovsky, who claims to be financing the opposition from his exile in London, has said: "The problem is that, for centuries, the Russian authorities have been violating the Russian people, turning them into cattle." This bovine image of the Russian electorate is a favorite of the country's liberal elite. Their cynical assumption seems to be that politics doesn't need to appeal to the people at all, that it is really about replacing bad people-herders with good people-herders.
What does it matter how people vote, or even if they vote at all, as Limonov vowed at the last Moscow rally before the elections, if Another Russia does not intend to accept any results as legitimate? Is it any wonder that most Russians view the opposition as simply wanting to take away the prosperity they have worked so hard to obtain? Is it any wonder that the Western media's uncritical adulation of this opposition, and of Another Russia in particular, is regarded by many Russians with deep suspicion?
Far from indicating a retreat from democracy, the Russian electorate's rejection of the current opposition may be a sign of the country's progress toward a mature democracy.
Nicolai Petro teaches international politics at the University of Rhode Island. He served as the US State Department's special assistant for policy on the Soviet Union under President George H. W. Bush. This article first appeared in the International Herald Tribune.
