Sergey Romanchuk: "Legitimism and elections"

"It is obvious that the trip to the elections and voting for one of the non -parliamentary opposition parties reduces the share of the votes cast over the EP and its satellites. It is obvious that the smaller number of votes of the party in power is a weakening of its power, and when the liberal opposition is also destroyed in the legislative process, that is, a situation that is more desirable for opponents of the authorities," writes a member of the committee of The Moscow Exchange foreign exchange market on Facebook , discussing the advisability of participating in the Duma elections.

“The only argument that claims to be rational when deciding“ not to go to the polls ”, if you are against the policy pursued in the country, is that you allegedly lowering your ballot in the urn means increasing the legitimacy of the election procedure, and therefore the strength of power and the continuation of its policy.

Legitimacy means the recognition by the people of power as legal, complies with legal norms, this is trust and the adoption of power by public consciousness, the justification of its actions. The common statement that legitimacy depends on the appearance is false. Legitimity and turnout are simply in no way related. Consider why.

The people are a lot of people, each of whom can consider the power either legitimate or not, according to their representation. There are no halftones here. No one will say: "I consider the power legitimate by 30%." Thus, the total legitimacy consists of "individual legitimate", i.e. It is an additive value that can be measured by the share of people who consider the power legitimate.

Suppose you consider the elections “non -harvesting”, “clowning”, “the birthday of the authorities, where you were not called”, “they will still consider it as it should,” “there are no one to vote for” and for this reason do not go to the polls. Will your assessment of the legitimacy of the authorities change from the fact that you still clamp your nose and come to lower the ballot into the urn?! Obviously no. You initially do not consider these elections with free elections, there are no candidates for whom I would like to vote, etc. ”

“Legitimity is often confused with legalism. Legitimity, unlike legality, is not a legal fact. Therefore, links to the fact that the election observers, if they have not revealed violations, increase the legitimacy of power, are incorrect. They are convinced of the execution of legal procedures, but do not change their attitude to power from the point of view of legitimacy.

The same people who relate to the authorities as legitimate can also not change their opinion from whether you come to the polls or not. Whether the turnout will be 70% or 30%, will not change their opinions about the legitimacy of power. ”

"Thus, if individual assessments of legitimacy do not change, then how can the amount change?!

The only option in which the legitimacy of power can decrease is the revealed disorders in the elections. The lack of legality, of course, reduces the legitimacy, because there is a non -lot of people who, making sure that the authorities cannot defeat legally, ceases to consider it legitimate. Thus, if you do not like the policy pursued in the country, you need not only to go to the polls, mathematically reducing the result of the party in power, but also actively participate in observation. ”