Warm-up before the New Year

The two-part story “Elections in Russia” leads to sad reflections. And the point is not even that one of the main mechanisms of democracy has been cut off, mutilated and vulgarized - this was clear long before voting day, when laws were adopted that nullified the free expression of the citizens. The fact is that the farce, the first episode of which ended on December 2, has goals that are far from constitutional and unclear to the majority of voters.

“Why did they need such large-scale fraud when they are already winning?” - commentators and analysts ask. This puzzling question implies that the State Duma is created to make laws, and the Kremlin wants to control legislators. But he already controlled them in the last Duma, without making such excessive efforts as we have seen in recent weeks. This means that the point is not at all to manage the legislative process. These elections - with the hysterical need of the party in power not just to win, but to win decisively - are more than elections. The authorities put a different content into them. She has already said through the mouth of her functionary that in fact this is a referendum on trust in Putin. It would seem strange: why does the president leaving in three months need credit and popular recognition of the correctness of the political course he is pursuing? And one more strange thing: for the sake of a simple victory in the elections, the government and its party would not have agreed to an international scandal with European observers (both those who did not come and those who gave their conclusion); would not have committed such massive lawlessness (seizure of opposition propaganda literature, voter fraud, etc.). The goal of the government is not victory in elections, but the imitation of universal approval of President Putin and his political course. That’s why they needed a high turnout. That’s why they needed high interest rates for themselves and low interest rates for the opposition.

The authorities will try to use the propaganda harvest collected in the elections to the State Duma in the second series of the farce in March next year. The presidential election is the apotheosis of the entire campaign, which began with the December warm-up.

Forecasting is a thankless task in any country, and even more so in Russia. I would be happy to be wrong, but events are developing in a sad direction. The cult of Putin’s personality is being implanted in the country and an atmosphere of universal unity and cohesion is being imitated. The parliamentary elections were supposed to illustrate the unity of, if not the whole society, then the overwhelming part of it. Such a warming up of the political atmosphere is suitable for only one thing - dictatorship. This was very transparently hinted to us on the eve of the elections - Putin is considered by the authorities as a national leader. Public office in this case is the tenth thing. Putin's opponents, in turn, are viewed as enemies, not only of the president, but of the entire country and its happy future.

For the decisive and final creation of a regime of personal power - either Putin himself or his successor - almost everything has been prepared: an atmosphere of universal support, a controlled parliament, obedient courts, controlled television, reliable intelligence services and the army. The only thing missing is a reason for the last spasm of unity, when the Constitution is no longer important, because the enemy is at the gates and the fate of the Fatherland is in danger.

It’s not difficult to find a reason, if you have the desire. It’s not for nothing that in recent years the Kremlin has been so madly and persistently creating enemies for itself from neighboring countries that were once friendly to us. And then two events, apparently not very connected, happened one after the other. The speaker of the lower house, Boris Gryzlov, said on December 2 that the new Duma could consider the issue of independence for Abkhazia and South Ossetia as early as January. President Putin said the next day that the Duma should be convened earlier, without waiting for the 30-day period established by law. Why did Gryzlov need to make such a scandalous statement on such a festive day for him? Why did the president need to convene the Duma on the eve of the New Year without explaining the reasons? When there is no work plan, no factions, no formed committees. What's the rush?

Georgia's reaction was lightning fast - acting President Nino Burjanadze expressed her indignation, and Minister for Conflict Resolution David Bakradze said, as reported by ITAR-TASS, that "the Georgian authorities will not allow even an inch of their land to be taken away from the country."

The State Duma will meet, presumably, in December. The Christmas and New Year holidays are ahead, when public life freezes for almost two weeks, newspapers are not published, and everyone wants to take a break from politics and pressing matters with their family. A time when everything is possible.