How to Break the Monopoly of Power

One of the important results of the year is the authorities' defeat in elections in a number of regions: the Kremlin is far from always in control of the situation. This means that Navalny's idea of ​​"smart voting" has prospects, says political geographer Dmitry Oreshkin

At the end of December, the Golos movement published a report on the results of the Primorye gubernatorial elections, in which it claims: there are facts of mass falsification of the voting results, the will of the voters was distorted at least in 47 polling stations, Oleg Kozhemyako most likely did not overcome the 50-percent barrier and should not be considered the winner. Nevertheless, the authorities recognized these elections, Vladimir Putin has already met with the "winner", and the campaign participants received promotions. In particular, the post of deputy head of the Kremlin department for providing the State Council - responsible for elections in the regions - was received by a long-time associate of presidential aide Vladislav Surkov, Boris Rappoport, who, according to Vedomosti, was the main political strategist and informal head of Kozhemyako's headquarters in the December elections.

Political scientist and sociogeographer Dmitry Oreshkin talks about how to resist elections in Primorsky style, why active participation in voting is more effective than boycotting elections, and how the “smart voting” project proposed by Alexei Navalny is justified

Exit from binary code

Culturologist Yuri Lotman has empirically shown that the domestic way of thinking tends to a binary code: either "yes" or "no" - without halftones and compromises. We do not notice this feature, because from the inside it seems natural and normal. According to Lotman, the alternative is a ternary pattern, more typical of Western Europe. When there is some additional space next to the numerical axis connecting plus and minus. The first to identify the problem was the European Hegel: first "thesis", then "antithesis" towards it, and finally "synthesis". Which is logically impossible without going into a more multidimensional space, beyond the binary code.

Applied to today's Russian elections, Hegel's dialectic looks like this: vote (thesis), don't vote (antithesis) – you'll still get... a protégé of power. That is, not a synthesis, but a complete denial of its possibility.

The binary (strictly negative) idea of ​​boycotting elections and replacing them with a popular uprising leads to a dead end, to permanent sterility. The minority (independent enough to listen to Navalny) does not consider street revolution, barricades and fights with the police to be a good thing. The majority, which, in the Soviet manner, believes in revolution and in the leader (like, "he will come and restore order"), so far listens not to Navalny, but to television.

That is why Navalny is changing his strategy. And this is right, because it follows not from general theoretical reasoning about how Russia should have been organized (in this regard, no one is stronger than the Yabloko party), but from simple empirical knowledge about how Russia is actually organized.

Yes, the elections are unfair. But not infinitely unfair. And still better than the Soviet ones. In which the alternative candidate Boris Yeltsin ultimately won. And no election commissions, three-quarters of which were members of the CPSU, no curators from the KGB could prevent this.

Limit of falsifications

Now it's just arithmetic. If you don't live in Chechnya, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Kemerovo Oblast or other "electoral sultanates" (up to 20 in total, where election results are routinely drawn, as they were in the USSR), then voting makes sense. Although it's significantly limited. Such a strange phenomenon as socio-cultural resistance does not allow electoral administrators to add more than 15 percentage points to the result. This is an empirically established threshold. Well, 20 at most. If it's more, scandals begin, showdowns within the elite, leaks to the press, irritated calls from the Kremlin, members of the electoral administration feel like complete idiots, careers of regional bosses are ruined, etc. Up to and including "Bolotnaya Square," if we're talking about Moscow. In short, it's not good.

Such a strange phenomenon as sociocultural resistance does not allow electoral administrators to add more than 15 percentage points to the result. This is an empirically established threshold. If it is more, scandals, showdowns in the elite, leaks to the press begin

That is why in regions with relatively high socio-cultural resistance, back in the early 2000s, smart bosses (Luzhkov first and foremost) invented such a wonderful tool as the "low turnout strategy". Everything ingenious is simple: if the real turnout in Moscow is 25% (less than 2 million people) and about a third of them (0.6 million) vote for United Russia, then it is enough to add (or transfer from other parties) just 0.5 million votes so that the official support figure would be pulled up from a third to half. Half a million votes for a city with almost 7.5 million voters is 7% of the list. A matter of technique! As a result, with the help of the A-resource, the official turnout will be about 32% (modest, but tasteful) and half of the votes will go to the right people.

Specifically in Moscow, after Bolotnaya Square (and also after Luzhkov's resignation), such crude manipulation is no longer practiced. But now we are talking about something else: low turnout unties the hands of the manipulators and makes it easier to control the numbers.

Hence the simple conclusions. Firstly, the falsification capabilities of the nomenklatura are far from limitless. Secondly, the cries that one should not sit at the table with the swindlers are very opportune for the swindlers themselves. The fewer real people come, the easier it is to prove their prosperity with the help of compact manipulation. Thirdly, the price of the issue is usually several percent of the real turnout.

Navalny, since he is the only one who really wants to become president, understood the weak point of the system earlier than others. Based on personal experience. Yes, often a 3-5% increase in protest turnout is enough to bring the situation very close to a second round. This is what happened, in particular, in the Moscow mayoral elections in 2013, when the turnout (real!) was 32% against the 35% drawn up under Luzhkov in 2009. Then Sobyanin got only 51.4% - one and a half percent above the critical threshold. It seems that this was an honest figure. In any case, it is an order of magnitude more honest than the elections to the Moscow City Duma in 2009, when the real turnout was about 25%, and the added up to 35% of the votes (a third of the number of voters!!) went to Luzhkov's piggy bank.

Playing against the system

The second idea of ​​"smart voting" is consolidated support for the most promising opponent of the ruling party, that is, "United Russia", regardless of party affiliation. Which is also smart, because today it is more important to destroy the monopoly on power. And who and how will personify the alternative is a secondary question. Of course, this is also very beneficial for Navalny's team, because these guys modestly reserve the right to decide who will become "number two" and get a chance to go to the second round. In the understandable calculation of forming an alternative center of electoral influence.

The second idea of ​​"smart voting" is consolidated support for the most promising opponent of "United Russia" regardless of party affiliation. Which is also smart, because today it is more important to destroy the monopoly on power. And who and how will personify the alternative is a secondary question

Well done. Politics is a struggle of resources; at least they do not portray themselves as selfless and selfless fighters for the people's happiness. Which drives their liberal opponents, stuck at the level of binary perception, into cognitive rage.

Hence the predictable reaction of the first (and so far the only) center of electoral influence in the Kremlin. Ban it immediately! (The website of the “smart elections” project was blocked under a far-fetched pretext. But it’s unlikely to work – information, like water, will find a hole.

As for the revolutionary mind boiling with indignation, all that is needed is to remove the binary boiler from it. And change the optics. It is time to finally understand that the transition to European norms will be accompanied by a painful socio-cultural breakdown. An explosion, if according to Lotman.

The effective model of civil disobedience today is not a boycott of elections, but, on the contrary, the most active participation in them. No one is mistaken about the independence of Putin's court and prosecutor's office, right? Which does not prevent pressure on the system by appealing to them. Not being too mistaken about the result. Simply as part of a campaign of disobedience or trolling. The more appeals, the more unpleasant it is for the system.

But how does Putin's electoral system differ from Putin's court? Why can't it be used in a similar mode? Nothing. It can. It's just a matter of changing the template.