Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, October 05, 2012

Co-opt the opposition

The Russian government demonstrates another method of control.

Your students do know what "nomenklatura" refers to, don't they? What does that say about Morozov? How do the Kremlin's efforts compare to the screening process in Iran? (And, what's the Kremlin? What does it mean in this context?)

And what does all this have to do with political legitimacy?

Not in Script for Kremlin: A Real Race for Governor

A funny thing happened during the elections… for governor in the Russian region of Ryazan: for a few weeks, no one knew who would win.

An insurgent appeared from within the local nomenklatura, and it looked as if he might beat the bland former construction engineer whom the Kremlin appointed governor in 2008. Igor N. Morozov, a former intelligence officer, was so convincing that local officials began abandoning the incumbent, knowing that they risked their careers by doing so. Here was a case of actual political competition.

That is what Dmitri A. Medvedev promised in December when… he reinstated the direct election of governors… But the Kremlin has hollowed out that promise. Voters in five Russian regions will cast votes for governor on Oct. 14, but the contests have been micromanaged from Moscow, which imposed strict screening of candidates to avoid any uncertainty in the outcome…

Just as experts were beginning to point to a real horse race, Mr. Morozov was summoned for urgent consultations with Kremlin officials. The next day he appeared at an awkward news conference and said he was dropping out. His campaign, he explained, had created the “threat of a split in society.” In return, it seemed, he would be named a senator…

This summer, as Russia’s political class fell into lock step around Mr. Putin… races for governor still promised a bit of intrigue…

Mr. Putin was the first to warn that these would not be wholly free elections, and that he envisioned a “presidential filter” to exclude candidates with criminal backing. By the time that idea had been enshrined in law, it had become a “municipal filter.” Any candidate wishing to run for governor had to first win the endorsement of 10 percent of the region’s municipal lawmakers…

For his part, Vladimir Y. Krymsky, of A Just Russia, is so angry that... “I am ready to say to the president, ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich, please return the procedure of direct appointment — it would be honest,’”... “But when they thrust this person on us and tell us, ‘You will vote for him,’ and then the day after the elections he wakes up and says, ‘I am the person who has been chosen by the people’ — well, that’s nonsense, it’s a nightmare, it’s cynicism.”...