Strategy for the election

On March 4, the presidential election will be held in Russia. Five candidates are registered to participate in the elections. First of all, this is the Prime Minister and ex-president Vladimir Putin, nominated by the United Russia government party. Other parties presented in the country's parliament nominated their candidates. All these candidates are party leaders: Gennady Zyuganov comes from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (Communist Party), from Fair Russia-Sergey Mironov, from the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia-Vladimir Zhirinovsky. In addition to four listed, one independent candidate, billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, is registered. Numerous other candidates were also nominated, including the leader of the Yabloko party Grigory Yavlinsky, but they were not registered.

The composition of candidates who will participate in the elections is largely explained by Russian electoral law. The parties that are represented in parliament are exempted from the need to collect signatures in support of their candidates. The required number of signatures is two million. The opinion is widely widespread - and I completely share it - that it is technically impossible to collect so many signatures within the framework of the time allotted to this procedure. And if some candidates still submit signatures to the Central Election Commission (CEC), then this happens because in Russia since the 90s there has been a system of fabrication of signatures for political needs based on the available databases about Russian citizens. It is clear that the “collected” signatures in this way can be recognized as false during the audit that the CEC carries out.

Thus, the electoral legislation creates the conditions in which only candidates approved by the authorities can be allowed to the presidential election. In the modern Russian political vocabulary, such a selective approach is indicated by the word “filtering”. In relation to the candidates nominated by parliamentary parties, the parties themselves serve the main means of filtering. If this or that batch is allowed to be represented in parliament, this indicates that it is licensed by the authorities and does not pose a real threat to the official candidate for the presidency.

Two of these parties, the Communist Party and the LDPR, are the heritage of the previous stage in the country's development. The largest of them, the Communist Party, retains commitment to traditional communist values ​​to which some share of nationalism is added. Such ideological positions are separated only by a minority of citizens of the country, and for a significant part of the population they are categorically unacceptable. The leader of the Communist Party, the elderly communist apparatchik Gennady Zyuganov, has already played the presidential election many times. Its public image and rhetoric are archaic and little adequate to modern realities.

LDPR is a personal political machine of its leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky. He is an experienced and rather effective public politician, but a specific manner of behavior and a long loop of public scandals and irresponsible rhetoric, drawing after him, make him a weak candidate for the presidency. Like Zyuganov, Zhirinovsky has a long history of participation in the presidential election, which he invariably lost with the results inferior to the results of his own party in the parliamentary elections. This means that Russian citizens - even those who generally positively perceive Zhirinovsky in parliament - do not see him as the president of the country. However, for a significant part of the population, the candidacy of Zhirinovsky is just as or even more unacceptable as the candidacy of Zyuganov. In addition, the opposition of Zhirinovsky is doubtful, because during his long career he agreed with the authorities that existed at that time on all points of the political agenda, which represented importance for the authorities.

The opposition of the third party candidate, Mironov, is even less obvious. Although he has a fairly extensive experience in public policy at the local level, in St. Petersburg, however, he owes his all-Russian political career to Putin, who in 2000 attracted him to the core of his ruling group, ensuring the election of Mironov by the speaker of the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council. Then the first experience of Mironov participation in the presidential election was held as a candidate-fool, that is, a technical candidate designed to ensure the reality of the elections if other opposition politicians remove their candidates. During the campaign, Mironov directly called to vote for Putin.

In the future, Mironov, remaining the chairman of the Federation Council (and, therefore, bearing responsibility for the adoption of all the law approved by Putin), headed the Just Russia party, which for a long time was considered as the “left foot of the Party of power”, that is, the left party that supported Putin. The main task of “Fair Russia” was the gradual crowding out of the Communist Party from the political arena, and when implementing this strategy, Mironov enjoyed the full support of the Kremlin. Only last spring, Mironov was shifted from the post of the speaker of the Federation Council and announced the transfer of his party to the “real” opposition. In addition, Mironov does not look very convincing as a public policy.

The only non -partisan candidate who was allowed to register to participate in the presidential election is a billionaire of Prokhorov. Prokhorov’s political career began last year, when he for some time headed the party “Just business”. Even then, it was not a secret that Prokhorov’s advancement in public policy was facilitated by the presidential administration, which thus hoped to incorporate the middle city layers into the system. In the future, however, they abandoned this strategy, and Prokhorov lost his leadership in the “right”. Obviously, after the failed elections for December 4 and the subsequent protest rallies in the Kremlin, they decided to return to the original plan. Even Prokhorov himself does not deny that his participation in the elections is in the interests of the Kremlin. Putin also declared a positive attitude to Prokhorov.

Thus, on March 4, Russian voters will have to make a choice between Putin and four politicians, each of which has significant shortcomings in the eyes of a mass of voters. Naturally, in these conditions, the main goal of the presidential administration and the Putin election staff is that on December 4, he receives more than half of the votes of voters. Then there will be no need to conduct a second round of voting. Already now, the Russian television broadcast, entirely controlled by the authorities, is full of Putin's figure. Despite the fact that in Russia there are formally strict restrictions on the pre-election activity of candidates, these restrictions do not apply to Putin, since it is believed that his actions-even if they are frankly pre-election-are covered as the actions of the Prime Minister, and not a presidential candidate. Thus, the Russian media are doing everything possible to convey to voters the thought of Putin's non -alternativeness.

Meanwhile, the results of the elections on December 4 indicate that Putin’s victory in the first round - even with the existing set of candidates - is not guaranteed. Russian voters are still annoyed by Putin’s nomination for the third term and the prospect of the fact that he will occupy the presidential chair for another 12 years; Mass discontent caused falsification in the December 4 elections; Putin’s rhetoric about his readiness to solve the problems of the country no longer causes confidence, since it naturally leads to the question of why these problems were not resolved over the past 12 years, when Putin - formally or in fact - was in power.

Of course, the mood of voters in Russia is not the only factor in the outcome of the race, since the system of administrative mobilization of voters and falsifications in the elections comes to the aid of the authorities. The main players in this system are the presidential administration, which determines the planned guidelines based on the results of voting, regional authorities, directly providing the desired result, and the CEC that is engaged in the publication of the results and their justification for the public. All these three players remain on the field. The authorities even refused to resign the chairman of the CEC Vladimir Churov, whose activity causes public indignation. Moreover, in the presidential administration, this direction is now supervised by Vyacheslav Volodin, known for its brutal methods of leadership and the desire to obtain a result at all costs.

However, in this situation, the result cannot be considered completely predetermined. In the parliamentary elections, the planned landmark of United Russia amounted to 65% of the votes, but in the end, she had to be pleased with a more modest result, 49.3%. The decisive contribution to such a development of events was made by Alexei Navalny's strategy of voting “for any other party”, that is, for any batch, except for United Russia. Although the set of options in the parliamentary elections included, with the exception of Yabloko, the same parties that have now nominated their candidates, this strategy turned out to be productive. A significant mass of people came to the elections and cast their votes to the parties of the “systemic opposition” not sincerely, but strategically, based on the correct assumption that in this way they cause damage to “United Russia”. Is it possible to count on a repetition of such an effect in the presidential election? And what in connection with this should be done not allowed for the elections, the "non -playing" opposition?

During the rallies held on Bolotnaya Square and on Sakharov Avenue, the position of “not a single voice of Putin” was quite widely voiced. This position, however, is not equivalent to Navalny’s strategy in the sense that it is purely negative. In a broad sense, it can mean a call to the boycott of the elections. Fortunately, now in the Russian opposition there are no noticeable currents that would adhere to the boycott strategies. On December 4, the experience has fully proved its futility. But with this restriction, two approaches are possible-to completely repeat the strategy of the parliamentary elections, urging the vote “for any other candidate”, or to provide support to some of them.

In particular, the concept of the “president of the transition period” nominated by the publicist Andrei Piontkovsky received a rather broad walk, according to which opposition citizens must support the candidate who promises to fulfill a number of conditions after the arrival. Typically, the list of conditions includes wide liberalization, the dissolution of the parliament chosen on December 4 and the election of a new, according to democratic rules, support the constitutional reform, but the main thing is the candidate’s consent that he will not be in power throughout the entire six-year period, but will resign earlier and appoint new, again democratic, elections.

I must say that presidential candidates reacted carefully to this concept. To a large extent, this concept was adopted by Zyuganov as part of an agreement concluded by him with one of the leaders of the unregistered movement “Left Front” Sergei Udaltsov. True, Zyuganov refused to resign ahead of schedule. Mironov, who directly declared his readiness to become the “president of the transition period”, that is, to leave, almost completely adopted this concept. With several requirements, including the early dissolution of the parliament, Prokhorov agreed, who especially persistently claims the role of the leader of the protest movement. However, this is not surprising when you take into account its functions in the campaign in terms of the Kremlin. Thus, the strategy of Navalny, as if an alternative appears - the support of one of the candidates.

To evaluate the productivity of this strategy, you should, first of all, take into account that in a sense the alternative is false. Of course, on December 4, voters, in the vast majority, voted not quite randomly, but on the basis of preliminary selection, which excluded the least satisfactory candidates. Each had, so to speak, their own "Party of the Transition period." Thus, at the level of individual behavior, two strategies are largely coincided.

It is important, however, to understand that there is a difference between individual strategies and having a wide address audience with political calls. The strategy of “voting for any other party” implies the freedom of the voter in choosing the party that seems convincing to him. These ideas can radically differ from the ideas of the opposition leaders. In December, a significant part of the voters, contrary to the obvious shortcomings of the LDPR, voted for it, reducing the result of United Russia. Navalny’s strategy did not interfere with this. On the contrary, a call to vote for a certain candidate implies the refusal of some voters from the most convincing opposition options to him. Such voters will either not come to the elections or vote for Putin, because for some of them the “President of the Transition period” determined by the opposition will be absolutely unacceptable.

The elementary fact is that in the first round of elections for Putin, any vote filed for it will be lost. This means that from the point of view of the main goal of the opposition - the most damage to the official candidate - it is optimal to vote for any other candidate, and the strategy aimed at artificial narrowing of the circle of options available to the opposition voter is counterproductive. If Putin receives 49% of the vote, then it is completely indifferent whether his main opponent will have 40 or 20% in the first round. The outcome of the elections will be decided in the second. It is for it to take place, and you need to fight. Even if it doesn’t reach, the experience of the parliamentary elections showed that the less convincing the victory of the official candidate is, the more the strategic capabilities of the opposition, and the more serious concessions that can be pulled out in power.

From this point of view, the voting strategy “for any other candidate” is optimal. The second lesson of the parliamentary campaign is that this strategy should be supplemented by civil activity - both in the form of mass protests against falsifications in the elections, and, especially in the form of active actions to suppress them by observing the elections. It is in this, and not in the fruitless search for the most acceptable candidate, that a way to extract at least some benefit for the further development of the country from the undemocratic presidential elections.