PARADISE LOST

No, I did not burst into tears. It was more of a painful sob that gave me a shake deep down inside and I squeezed it out of my body though my right eye – a shapeless, pitiful tear. It immediately got wiped against the fuzzy carpet as I was lying down on the floor, listening to the radio. Today was the beginning of the end, I thought to myself. On 16 November Russia dropped out of the international legal framework: the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had been forced to cancel its planned surveillance of the Russian parliamentary elections due on 2 December. To put it simpler – foreigners will not be there to monitor the Russian elections. At all.

The cancellation was not connected to ill will, nor was it a sign of weakness and readiness to give up at the sight of slightest obstacle. It was the only possible outcome after the Russian government had been holding back the official invitations necessary to obtain the Russian visas until two weeks ago. Meanwhile, according to the regular procedure, the first OSCE delegates should have already arrived in Russia on 7 and 15 November to stay for two months. Not only had Russia introduced strict limitations of the number of delegates allowed in the country, it also limited their possible stay down to a meagre couple of weeks and Russian embassies across Europe continuously denied issuing their visas, offering “no order from Moscow so far” for a reason. All this has made it impossible for OSCE to provide quality service of any sort, and they are not an organization fond of irresponsible political tourism.

The second reason for their not going to Russia at all was the fact that they had been informed of such grave violations during the election campaign already, that it was enough to declare the upcoming election results irrelevant: a large set of printed material (posters, brochures, leaflets) prepared by one of the top-rated opposition parties was confiscated and never returned, television channels are openly propagating loyalty to the current regime and President Putin, who was appointed the locomotive to top the ruling party United Russia's election list spoke in support of the party during his television address to the nation, outside of the election campaign slot – and those are only the registered violations. There are also rumours of municipality leaders being held responsible for high voting results in favour of Putin's party. Opposition group The Other Russia, uniting many bright leaders and not allowed to take part in the parliamentary elections, are urging the voters to still come to the poll stations and either vote for one of the registered opposition parties or cross out all candidates and write “The Other Russia” on the ballot sheet. That way, they say, one can prevent one's ballot from being used in the fraud scheme in favour of the ruling party. Whether that is what many Russians will do remains in question as most of them feel too apathetic to try anything, convinced of their inability of changing the current developments as individuals and virtually stripped of the important constitutional right to demonstrate as a group. Besides, the stereotype that the rule of one powerful man (tsar, or another type of dictator that resembles a tsar) remains deeply rooted in the thinking of many, and thus any prospective leader honestly calling for a more liberal society with more personal freedom and responsibility collects but a handful of the more educated, noble and broad-minded followers.

Whatever leader materializes after the elections (and that can occur after the parliamentary elections already, should the constitution be changed and more power be given to the leader of the winning party and not the president), what such thinking breeds is allowing a small corporation in power to drain Russia of its vast resources, use it and abuse it for the sole purpose of that small corporation's glamorous living. The same in fact that we have seen under monarchy and Soviet rule, only to an even larger degree of selfish gain as opposed to serving the country.

Correction : The threat to leave the Russian elections unmonitored worked. As of 27 November, the OSCE, the PACE and the Northern Council did get a go-ahead on the visas and said they would send 100 observers, arriving in Russia on Friday, 30 November. They will leave on 4 December. It is hardly necessary to point out that spending 5 days monitoring the elections is more like political tourism than serious analysis, and the observers will probably see nothing but the very tip of the huge iceberg of violations. Yet, it is vital that Russia will not remain isolated on this crucial day. Any violations reported by the observers will help to provide internationally recognized proof of the grave disrespect for the civil rights and election laws marking these “elections”

Comments:

Chris wrote 1 Dec 2007:

It is very hard for us in the west to understand WHY United Russia needs to rig the elections. They are bound to win them without any intervention. I know that Putin sees these elections as a justification of his policies; but he would get that, come what may. If he wants to get a sweeping majority of 80% or 90% or more, he must be intelligent enough to know that this sort of result would make him look ridiculous to the rest of the civilised world. I don't know what effect such a result would have on the majority of the electorate in Russia.

However no political system is perfect. Ours in the UK certainly isn't. Our first-past-the-post electoral parliamentary monarchy system usually delivers strong government and avoids hung parliaments and the resulting weak coalitions of some continental European democracies, but it also means that the popular vote is not proportionally recognised. AND it has taken us centuries to even get this far. We only got full franchise less than 100 years ago and before that we had rotten boroughs, pocket parliamentary seats and extensive corruption and bribery. Russia is a young democracy and has a long way to go. I am sorry to see her taking backward steps at this point in time.

West Germany, where I lived for 12 years, only really got democracy after 1945. And even now, many older people do not really understand it. I remember talking to an old lady about the introduction of the Euro. Her opinion was that the politicians can do what they like. "Wir können nichts dagegen machen" (we can't do anything about it) was her opinion. I said that she could always vote for another party but she told me that they were all the same. All the major parties wanted the Euro, even though the majority of the population didn't. That seems like a poor sort of democracy to me.

Give Russia time. I'm sure that a suitable system will develop. We can't force our Western models on her and to try and do it would surely backfire. However we may have to wait 100 years or so!!

Sophia Kornienko replied 2 Dec 2007:

To which I can reply that if Russians don't do anything today (vote, write articles, openly discuss these issues, peacefully demonstrate) and if the West continues saying only "give Russia time", it will hardly ever change to become a more liberal system. Who says a monarchy is a thing of the past?

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