Former CPSU General Secretary Gorbachev on State of Democracy in Russia
Rossiyskaya Gazeta July 23, 2006 Article by Mikhail Gorbachev, former CPSU General Secretary and president of the Soviet Union: "The Elections That We Choose"
On the threshold of the recent meeting of the "Big Eight" in St. Petersburg, the debate about democracy that was already underway in Russia became especially sharp. A great deal in the opinions of Western politicians and commentators on this topic was rejected in our society. Primarily because people believe that it is a matter of our country and of our democracy and we ourselves are the ones, rather than the US vice president, who should decide what it should be like and how to build it. It has long been time for the West to realize that any pressure on Russia will bring nothing but harm.
But while rebuffing outside pressure, we are obligated all the more to carefully analyze and critically evaluate the state of democratic processes in our country. To me the starting point is that Russia can reach the point that we are aspiring to only by following a democratic path. Along with that we must understand that the transition from totalitarianism to democracy is taking place in the context of our history rather than in airless space or some ideal conditions. It has proven to be very difficult and will require a considerable amount of time and effort from the entire society.
The conditions of our "transit to democracy" were made especially difficult as a result of the erroneous policies of the Russian leadership in the 1990s. The poverty of most of the population, the chaos in government and in the economy, and the threat of the dissolution of the country -- could democracy be developed in such conditions? Essentially there was no such thing; there was an imitation of it and it became discredited.
Having inherited such a situation, Vladimir Putin had to think above all of preventing the dissolution of the country and of stabilizing the economy and society overall. Moreover, he had to act fast, and here measures not envisioned by the standard textbooks on democracy could not be avoided. It was necessary, for example, to force the regional leaders to bring the regions' legislation into line with federal law. Decisive steps were required to fight terrorism. As a result of the steps taken, the crisis in Russian statehood was overcome and there was economic growth, the fruits of which are beginning to have a positive effect on people's lives. This created a new situation. But something else is also true: stability in society and a definite improvement in economic indicators in themselves do not eliminate the questions associated with the state of our democracy. On the contrary: after all, if the complex and even extraordinary circumstances that we encountered at the start of the current decade have been overcome, then this is exactly the time to figure out to what degree our democratic mechanisms and the proposed legislative solutions correspond to the main task -- building a new, free, democratic society in Russia.
There is reason to worry here. Twenty years after the start of the democratic transformations, we still have a lot of unjustified restrictions, bans, and barriers -- both old ones and ones newly appearing. I think that it is no accident that A. Veshnyakov, the chairman of the Central Electoral Commission, recently stated the danger that instead of real political competition, elections in our country may become a farce. And the president of the country has been compelled to remind people that the opposition has the right to express its opinion, which should be heeded. Here it is a matter of what is most important, since competitive elections and a real opposition are the most fundamental features of democracy.
One must say that the closer the parliamentary and presidential elections come, the more noticeable the attempt of part of the Russian political elite to narrow and reduce citizens' participation in the political process. Instead of involving people in politics and in making vitally important decisions through exercising their constitutional rights, we see attempts to limit their participation in state affairs and regulate it so that it loses effectiveness and even sense.
The changes in the sphere of election law are most upsetting.
The new law adopted last year abolished elections for single-mandate districts. That was a step backward: with elections for single-mandate districts, the deputy directly represents his voters and their interests. But by voting for party lists, the voter sees only the names of the well known persons placed at the head of the list, and usually they do not even intend to work in the Duma. The practice is an odious one and outright deception -- but there is not a word about prohibiting it. But then such a system allows parties to get the "necessary people," who by no means depend on citizens but on the party's leadership, into the Duma.
The shift to a completely proportional system could have been justified under just one condition: if a stable party system had already been formed in the country and the parties overall adequately reflected the interests of all the social groups and strata. But at this point we still have a long way to go to reach that. In the present situation, it is perfectly obvious that this innovation is focused on monopolization of political space.
The Law on Political Parties adopted back in 2001 established a strict procedure for government regulation and control of the activity of parties and later on was made even tougher with additional requirements on the size of the parties, the number of regional branches, and so forth. When I was head of the Social Democratic Party, I once reluctantly agreed with these provisions of the law, believing that some legal base was better than none. But life showed that such regulation does not tally with democratic principles: the political solvency of parties must be determined by the voters rather than the state.
But the process of abridging the rights and opportunities of political parties is going even farther: the barrier in elections for getting into the Duma has been raised to 7% -- with the clear purpose of closing off the path to parliament for "undesirable" opposition parties. In accordance with the new legislation, of the 200,000 signatures that a party hoping to participate in an election must gather, the permitted share of recognized unreliable and invalid ones has been reduced from the former 20% to 5%. It is clear that, when they want to, the verifying bodies can easily find the sought-after number of "defects." The opportunities for arbitrary action are enormous.
One of the latest innovations is the removal of the column "against everyone" from election ballots. It is claimed that this will raise the civic responsibility of voters. But in fact a large number of the citizens will avoid participating in elections. In 2003 about 13 million people voted "against everyone." Moreover, usually those who vote that way are educated people protesting the absence of a real choice. Most likely most of them will not take part in elections.
But that is not all either. The idea of early voting, which risks election fraud, is being revived. Public organizations are being kept away from participating in observing the course of elections. Newspapers established by parties are prohibited from reporting on the activities of these parties to voters other than in the last month before the election. All this is being done at the initiative of United Russia, which is using its majority in the fourth Duma. There is just one goal -- to ensure the "party of the bosses" a guaranteed majority in the next elections at any price.
The seemingly frequent modifications in election legislation in sum lead to degeneration of the election system. It is increasingly becoming a purely formal mechanism. That is especially obvious in the case of the Federation Council. Sitting in it today are appointed officials who frequently do not have any connection with the regions they "represent." Flagrant incidents of corruption were recently discovered. The demand of S. Mironov, the chairman of the Federation Council, to revise the system for forming this chamber is understandable.
Voters' trust in elections and in the institutions of government has been falling in recent years. The low voter turnout in the recent elections and referendums eloquently attests to that.
One, however, gets the impression that the ruling "elite" are even interested in reducing citizen participation in elections. There was reason, after all, that on the federal level, the turnout level for declaring an election legitimate has been dropped from 50% to 25%; and in local elections it can be even lower. It appears that our bureaucracy believes that the fewer citizens that participate in an election, the more likely it is that they will obtain the result they need.
All this is occurring against the background of other events of recent years. I mean the restricted information independence of the electronic mass media; the universal use of administrative resources in election campaigns; the toughening of legislation regulating the holding of rallies and demonstrations; the adoption of the law on referendums, which made it practically impossible for them to be held other than by the decision of the authorities; and enhanced control over the activities of nongovernmental organizations. And what does that mean in conditions where all the governors are in the same party?
Is all this justified by the distinctive national features of our democracy or by certain external circumstances? I do not think so.
Needless to say, democracy must develop on each country's own soil, and it has its own distinctive national features. But there are general principles too. The restrictions that may prove to be necessary in a situation threatening the very existence of the state and people's lives must be considered temporary, rather than elevated to a principle, as the theoreticians of "sovereign" or "managed" democracy are doing. Such definitions distort the essence of democracy -- just as the concepts of "socialist" or "people's" democracy distorted it.
We are constantly being reminded of the need to fight phenomena such as terrorism and extremism. No reasonable person denies that. But when a law is passed that gives such a broad definition of extremism that it can be used to pressure any opposition and dissent, we simply must not agree to it. The bureaucracy attempting to shield itself from control by society obtains the real benefit from such legislation and from restrictions on citizens' election rights.
There has been a lot of talk lately about the need to restrain the bureaucracy. But only a developed civil society with stable legislation and feedback between the government and the population can be an effective antidote for its tyranny. But if the bureaucracy proves to be beyond real control from above and from below, and corrupt besides; it can change democratic ways into an empty formality and discredit and devalue the very concept of democracy, and even the need for it as such.
Analysis of the present difficulties of the democratic process leads us to the eternal Russian question: what is to be done? Above all we must realize that on the basis of such legislation, it is impossible to conduct truly democratic elections and ensure the real participation of the people in the political process.
There is still time to rectify the situation. I believe that the president, who has veto power, must now use his authority and great prestige. A decisive step on his part can change the situation. A great deal now depends specifically on him. I am certain that the president's actions will be supported by Russia's citizens.
In the end, all of us, Russian society, must make the choice. Will the country's development take the direction of real citizen participation in state affairs? Or will the model of paternalistic tutelage of a bureaucratic state over its citizens prevail? I am certain that Russia is worthy of the first path.
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