To the rhythm of the march

The nomination of a single presidential candidate will be the first test of the possibility of a real opposition in Russia

Yesterday, ex-world chess champion and leader of the United Civil Front Garry Kasparov was released after the first arrest in his opposition activities . “I hope people all over the world see how opposition activists are treated in Russia... The regime is entering a dangerous phase of becoming a dictatorship,” he said immediately after his release.

Five days of imprisonment for the former great chess player, no matter how you look at his current activities, is a good gift from the authorities for the opposition. And if it had been real, it would most likely have been picketing outside the walls of Petrovka, 38. But no serious protest happened. Under the walls of the Main Internal Affairs Directorate, only representatives of the “Bums for Kasparov” movement created by “Nashi” were on more or less constant duty in parked cars with the goal of turning pickets into a farce, if any appeared. Only on the fifth day did several leaders of the SPS and Yabloko temporarily unite in pickets.

However, a more serious test for the opposition (both the still “systemic”, that is, those allowed to participate in the parliamentary elections of the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko, and the non-systemic one - the “People’s Democratic Union” of Mikhail Kasyanov and “The Other Russia”) will be its ability to nominate a single candidate in the presidential election. One can imagine that even if its registration is refused, a protest electorate that does not share leftist ideology can consolidate around such an opposition. According to sociologists, there are now 15-20% of such electorates in Russia.

As for the current opposition, no matter how much one wants to call it united it is impossible. At the moment, Mikhail Kasyanov has announced his presidential ambitions, Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky has not ruled out his presidential nomination, and the Union of Right Forces plans to nominate Boris Nemtsov .

On the other hand, if only in order to prevent the unification of the opposition “from below,” the authorities may try to create some kind of liberal project “from above” that is less virtual than the current “Civil Force”.

The Vremya Novostei correspondent asked Russian political scientists to make forecasts regarding the prospects for the democratic opposition in Russia “from above” and “from below” after the parliamentary elections.

“It’s obvious that our priorities in the party system are changing,” says Alexey Makarkin, deputy general director of the Center for Political Technologies. - If four years ago the question was whether parties would act as parliamentary or extra-parliamentary, now we are talking about their physical survival - about whether they will be able to maintain the status of a party or whether they will become movements, interest clubs, etc. further. I have a feeling that now everyone will survive on their own, based on their own ideas. The fate of the “dissent marches” is also easy to guess: I think they will resume with the presidential elections. In the future, most likely, “dissenters” will remain as a radical, non-partisan part of the political spectrum. They will probably try to respond to all social problems and will join any public protest.”

Mikhail Vinogradov, general director of the Center for Current Political Affairs, does not entirely agree with this forecast: “Dissent Marches” are an election event, because in the inter-election period contradictions between opposition organizations will continue and they are unlikely to have reasons to consolidate. This will include some jealousy, a determination of whether the organization is sufficiently oppositional in the eyes of the West, and so on. It seems to me that if there are any “dissent marches”, they will be local. A massive wave of discontent is not expected.”

Returning to the arrest of Garry Kasparov, we can note two new manifestations of “disagreement.” On the one hand, this is a completely unexpected visit to Petrovka by another ex-world chess champion, Kasparov’s sworn chess enemy and Anatoly Karpov, who is hardly close to him in political views. On the other hand, for the first time during his presidential term, George Bush personally stood up to the Kremlin for the Russian opposition. “I am deeply concerned by the detention of a number of human rights activists and political leaders who took part in peaceful demonstrations in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Nazran over the weekend,” he said in a statement.

Will such support somehow affect the fate of the protest movement? Hardly. This movement has its own destiny and its own format, which arose due to circumstances and is controlled by circumstances, believes Dmitry Badovsky, deputy director of the Institute of Social Systems: “Marches of Dissent” are a kind of “modus vivendi” of our radical opposition. In the sense that “I march, therefore I exist.” It must be recognized that this is the main form of political action and political existence of the radical opposition. In this sense, of course, I think that activity will continue. Much depends on how the attempts to nominate a single presidential candidate go. If on the eve of the parliamentary elections there has been some consolidation of groups that are present in the radical field, then in the context of the presidential elections everything depends on the success of negotiations on a single candidate. If they end in a split, then there probably won’t be any significant opposition activity.”

As for the possible “right-wing liberal project” of the Kremlin, according to Mr. Badovsky, the government will soon take an observer position: “Won’t something grow on its own from within our albeit imperfect civil society? At the same time, the Kremlin has something to do in the next year or two - the modernization of United Russia. We see that work is underway there, platforms have appeared. I think that the Kremlin will work on bringing United Russia to fruition, especially if Putin leads it.”

Who will the right flank remain behind? Much depends on the outcome of the parliamentary vote, Mikhail Vinogradov believes: “If the Union of Right Forces does not receive any significant number of votes, then doubts will arise that we have a serious niche for the right part of the electorate. If a relatively significant part of the population votes for the Union of Right Forces, even regardless of whether the barrier is overcome, this will encourage the authorities to be active. But the Kremlin will have to take into account its own unsuccessful experience in creating dummies of right-wing parties, and the work ahead here will be even more difficult than on the left flank.”

Ksenia VERETENNIKOVA, Ivan GORDEEV