Translated material
Law of Conservation of Chiefs
Governors and heads of municipalities, who have already managed to join United Russia, are trying to provide this party (their “feeding trough” and “safe conduct letter”) with the maximum gap from “A Just Russia” in regional elections. In turn, “A Just Russia”, absorbing some of the officials and quasi-politicians (the same senators) built into the power vertical, must prove that it can become a real part of the post-Putin political system. That is, a structure through which officials and quasi-politicians built into the power vertical will be able to gain the same access to government careers and material benefits as they do now through United Russia.
Moreover, the choice of one or another party in power as an auxiliary instrument of influence will most likely have to be made by the real top managers of Russia, who are now preparing to divide and increase the legacy of the Putin era in a supra-party clan struggle. It is important for them to understand whether parties can play the same role in the fight against shadow political competitors that the Prosecutor General’s Office plays or control over the largest Russian business assets.
Paradoxically, in terms of goals for representatives of the entire system of state power in Russia, “sovereign democracy” is no different from normal democracy. Every power wants to survive. The only difference is that in Russia power is too clearly and on a large scale converted into property, and the loss of power with too great a probability can lead to the loss of not only this property, but also personal freedom. Well, one more difference. In democratic countries, the fate of power, no matter what they say about the magic of television and political technology methods of brainwashing the population, is decided exclusively by voters. And in Russia, if the results of any elections at any level - from the smallest municipality to the federation as a whole - are falsified, no one will be surprised.
In the inevitable struggle for self-preservation of the authorities in every cell, at the atomic and molecular level of the vertical of power, which, regardless of who becomes the third president of Russia, will undergo significant deformation, lies the only hope for significant changes in the country's political system. It is no coincidence that the wonderful line of Korney Chukovsky, “The wolves ate each other out of fright,” even when “The Cockroach” was written (smart people immediately realized that this was a children’s poem about Stalin and Stalinism), and now remains an almost scientific formula for designating the current political system in Russia.
Fear and uncertainty from the likely departure of the main boss is a systemic problem of any authoritarian government that is not supported by developed legitimate political institutions. That’s why it’s so important for bosses of all stripes to feel with their minds or physiological instincts whether to stay in United Russia or whether it’s time to defect to Spravedlivaya, whether to hide their party card under the pillow and burn it, or publicly show themselves as a zealous party activist.
Who said that the two Russian parties in power have no ideology? Very much so: this is the ideology of self-preservation of bosses at any cost. Because in non-democratic countries, parting with a position often turns out to be, as the song goes, a “little death”, and not the normal process of changing one job to another. So by the presidential elections of 2008, which can change our lives much more significantly than the regional and Duma elections, we will receive important information for consideration. We will find out to whom and in what proportions the governors, whom we can no longer change through elections, and the heads of municipalities, who are still, fortunately, elected, swear allegiance to.