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Russian Regional Elections

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Russian Regional Elections No. 239 26 September 2019 russian analytical digest www.css.ethz.ch/en/publications/rad.html www.laender-analysen.de RUSSIAN REGIONAL ELECTIONS ■■ANALYSIS Protest and Regional Elections 2 Yana Gorokhovskaia ■■ANALYSIS Outsmarting Electoral Authoritarianism? Alexey Navalny’s “Smart Voting” in Moscow and Beyond 5 Jan Matti Dollbaum (Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen) ■■DOCUMENTATION Results of the Regional Elections 9 Institute for European, Research Centre Center for Center for German Association for Russian, and Eurasian Studies for East European Studies Security Studies Eastern European Studies East European Studies The George Washington University University of Bremen ETH Zurich University of Zurich RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 239, 26 September 2019 2 ANALYSIS Protest and Regional Elections Yana Gorokhovskaia DOI: 10.3929/ethz-b-000367335 Abstract This year, the usually predictable regional elections sparked a conflict over which actors are allowed to par- ticipate in organized politics in Russia and which are not. Both the opposition’s campaign strategies and the social response they elicited suggest that future elections in the country will be more hotly contested. Status Quo or Change on the Horizon? of loss while maintaining the appearance of electoral Regional and municipal elections in Russia have tradi- legitimacy. In Russia, ballot-stuffing, carousel voting, tionally attracted little interest from either voters or and falsification are regular features of elections. How- the media. This year, however, conflict over the dis- ever, these types of electoral malpractice are danger- qualification of candidates running for seats in Mos- ous because they can spark widespread protest. By cow’s city duma drew greater attention to these contests. contrast, tactics to control the outcome of elections The controversy in Moscow began in early July when that are applied before voting day are effective and the city’s electoral commissions disqualified opposition far less risky. candidates, including former Duma member Dimitry One such strategy that has been a popular method Gudkov, opposition activist Ilya Yashin, Anti-Corrup- of electoral manipulation in Russia is to limit the polit- tion Fund lawyer Lyubov Sobol, and a number of other ical choices available to voters. System-wide, this has well-known local activists, from participating in the been accomplished through institutional engineering. election. In addition to challenging their disqualifi- A series of changes to laws governing party member- cations at higher standing electoral commissions and ship has led to a decrease in the number of parties able in the courts, the excluded candidates began organiz- to compete in elections, from over 60 in 2001 to just ing demonstrations that quickly grew into large pro- seven in 2009 (Golosov 2012). An April 2012 law relax- tests. The protests gained traction in late July and early ing the rules on party registration allowed many more August after some of the disqualified candidates were parties to appear, but the resulting confusion worked sentenced to administrative detention and riot police to undermine the opposition. At the local level, author- used force against peaceful protesters. In the middle of ities use electoral commissions to limit voter choice by August, Alexei Navalny announced the launch of the manipulating who is allowed to appear on the ballot “Smart Vote” initiative: a website that helped coordi- (Smyth and Turovsky 2018). One strategy is to pack nate opposition votes against United Russia candidates the ballot with spoiler candidates in order to confuse across the country. voters and to give the impression of competition. Ballots Despite the fact that none of the disqualified can- can also be stripped by disqualifying undesirable can- didates in Moscow were restored to the ballot, United didates. These strategies have the advantage of taking Russia’s share of seats on the city duma was cut from 38 place long before election day, being performed by for- to 25. The party of power also failed to win any seats in mally non-partisan electoral commissions, and appear- the Khabarovsk city duma and suffered losses in legis- ing technically procedural. lative and municipal elections in other regions as well. Manipulation of voter choice through both ballot Meanwhile, gubernatorial contests across the country packing and ballot stripping was evident in Moscow ended predictably. All incumbent governors won with and other regions this year. First, the Moscow branch comfortable leads over their challengers in contests that of United Russia made the decision not to nominate produced little controversy. The mixed performance of any candidates to the city duma election. Instead, all United Russia has brought into question the durabil- of their candidates ran as “self-nominated”, allow- ity of Russia’s existing political system as it struggles to ing them to mask their partisan affiliation on the deal with growing pressure exerted by previously mar- ballot in hopes of avoiding falling victim to a pro- ginalized opposition forces. test vote. In 2012’s municipal election in the capital, the local branch of United Russia also shed the party The Limits of the Manipulation Toolkit label in order to confuse voters trying to adhere to Elections under competitive authoritarianism are free Alexei Navalny’s “Anyone but United Russia” strategy. but unfair as the autocrat works to mitigate her risk Outside of Moscow, half of the gubernatorial incum- RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 239, 26 September 2019 3 bents decided not to run using the United Russia label, to protest is also on the rise. According to a May 2019 hoping to avoid the protest vote that brought down survey from the Levada Center, 22 percent of respon- three governors last year.1 Second, spoiler candidates dents said that they “most likely would” participate were added to the ballots to give the impression of in large-scale political protests, up from just 8 percent competition. In one bizarre case, a spoiler candidate, a year earlier.5 This figure is surprising considering the Aleksander Solovyov from Just Russia—who was put very real dangers faced by protesters with one in four on the ballot when the opposition candidate Alek- political protests in Russia experiencing police-led vio- sander Solovyov was disqualified—actually defeated lence (Lankina and Tertytchnaya 2019, p. 9). Indeed, the incumbent pro-regime candidate in his district.2 the summer protests in Moscow were not only notable Third, genuine opposition candidates were denied for their size but also for the harshness that charac- registration by Moscow’s electoral commissions. The terized the authorities’ response to them. Over 2,500 commissions found fault with the nomination signa- people were detained and videos of riot police using tures collected by the candidates, claiming that some considerable force against protesters were widely circu- of the signatures belonged to fictitious individuals and lated. Strikingly, serious criminal charges of mass rioting used handwriting experts to deem other signatures to and injuring police officers were subsequently brought be forgeries.3 The competitiveness of gubernatorial against some of the detained protesters. The charges are elections was also kept low through the exclusion of similar to those leveled at defendants in the Bolotnaya popular challengers.4 Square case from 2012. However, while it took months The strategy of using electoral commissions to limit and sometimes years to prosecute cases against the Bolot- voter choice long before voting day did not insulate the naya defendants, many cases stemming from the arrests authorities from criticism in Moscow as it had in the past. in July and August have already been heard by the courts. Thirteen prominent opposition candidates—including The timing and demands of the Moscow protests also several sitting municipal deputies—spent weeks in June make them unique. Most political protests are reactive and July collecting the approximately 5,000 signatures and staged in response to problems that happen during needed to register in the election. Their campaigns, pro- an election (McAdam and Tarrow 2010). For example, moted actively on social media, had already attracted For Free Elections mass protests followed accusations attention around the city before the electoral commis- of fraud in the 2011 Duma election and began the day sion disqualified them. The method of disqualifica- after the vote took place. This is the reason election fraud tion, especially the claims that nomination signatures is a risky tactic for an autocrat. However, recently some belonged to nonexistent people or “dead souls”, sparked election protests in Russia are becoming proactive and an immediate online response and mobilized supporters taking place before voters go to the polls. This was the to come out to the streets to demand the restoration of case with the “voters’ strike” protests of January 2018, these candidates. which called for a boycott of the March presidential elec- tion after Alexei Navalny was disqualified from the race. A Summer of Unrest in Moscow The protests this summer in Moscow were ten times the On August 10, 2019, the biggest protest of the last seven size of previous proactive protests and began almost two years took place in central Moscow. More than 50,000 months before election day. people came out in the rainy weather to show their sup- Related to the proactive nature of the mobilizations, port for disqualified opposition candidates. Despite pop- the demands issued by the protesters were procedural ular narratives about the passivity of Russian citizens, rather than abstract. The demands crystalized in the protests are not infrequent in the country. The Lankina dual slogans of “Допускай/Отпускай”, “Let them run! Russian Protest-Event Dataset recorded over 5,700 pro- Let them out!” referring to both the disqualified can- tests taking place between 2007 and 2016. Willingness didates and the detained protesters. Unlike many other 1 Andrey Pertsev. “Kremlin’s Rejection of United Russia Is Rejection of Politics Itself” Carnegie Moscow Center.
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