MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Liberal Democratic Party of Bachelor Thesis

Anna Mezhenskaya

Supervisor: prof. PhDr. Jan Holzer, Ph.D. Student ID: 450775 Study program: Political Science & Security & Strategic Studies Matriculation Year: 2015

Brno 2018 1 Declaration of authorship work

I hereby declare that the thesis Liberal Democratic Party of Russia is entirely my own original work except where otherwise indicated.

2 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank prof. PhDr. Jan Holzer, Ph.D. for supervising my thesis, for his crucial remarks and his kindness. I thank also my family. I love you.

3 Annotation

The bachelor thesis deals with the political party of LDPR and its position in the party and political system of the Russian Federation. The thesis aims to analyze the functioning of the LDPR under the conditions of the undemocratic regime of contemporary Russia.

Anotace

Bakalářská práce se zabývá politickou stranou LDPR a jejím postavením v stranickém a politickém systému Ruské federace. Práce si klade za cíl analýzu fungování LDPR v podmínkách nedemokratického režimu současného Ruska.

Key words

Russian Federation, LDPR, Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, opposition

Klíčová slova

Ruská federace, LDPR, Liberálně-demokratická strana Ruska, opozice

4 Content Introduction 6 1. Theoretical part 7 Case study: Russia 11 2. Analytical part 16 2.1 Political system in Russia 16 2.2 The LDPR 16 2.2.1. Origins and history (up to the present) 17 2.2.2. Leadership's phenomenon 20 2.2.3. Membership and the program 22 2.2.4. Domestic policy 24 2.2.5. Foreign affairs 24 2.2.6. Assumptions about the future of the party's fate 25 Conclusion 27 References 28 Literature 28 Articles 29 Websites 30 Social networks 33 Documents 33 Internet sources 33 Annexes 33

5 The opposition is the whole country today,

with the exception of a few thousand people

M. Khodorkovsky2018

Introduction

The aim of the thesis Liberal Democratic Party of Russia is to analyze the concrete political party in modern Russia in the context of possible non-democratic regime of Russian Federation within the framework of current Russian politics and also describe its political behavior in the same context. This is a case study.

Some scholars, politicians (in the first term Russian politicians) still believe that there is a democracy in Russia (Ruskline.ru 2018) or, at least, a hybrid regime (Hale 2009). A lot of scholars, also, are convinced that Russia is an example of classical non-democracy - more precisely - an example of authoritarianism1. But, at the same time, it is normal because life is not a light switch and every opinion has the right to exist if you can prove it. There are no good and bad regimes. There is no pure classical regime. It is all mixed, being modernized and, unfortunately, there are no generally accepted concepts of political parties, democracy, non- democracy and its types and so on. Russian political and party system is a special and the only one unique case that is constantly the object of many political researches. Although in the Russian Federation the executive branch represented by president is in fact the most influential, it is still absolutely important to know one of the main parts of the Russian legislative. The aim of this thesis is to analyze this part of Russian legislative, more precisely - to analyze - Liberal Democratic Party of Russia under contemporary Russian regime.

The thesis is divided into two main parts - theoretical and practical, first of all, as well as we are talking about the political party, there is a need to define what is political party in general. After that it is important to know what is an opposite political party and an opposite political party under non-democratic regimes so we need to specify the concept. Theoretical part includes general but crucial information about political regimes, typology of political parties and especially it will be described the concept of opposition party. The main accent in the theoretical part will focus on Linz2's concepts.

1 Whether it is appropriate to discuss about authoritarianism or not we will understand in the part 1.1. when this concept will be applied on Russian model of politics. 2 Spanish sociologist and political scientist. 6 The second part of this paperwork should be the most extensive and principal. In this part I will apply above studied concepts to the Russian reality. Then I will pay attention to the main political parties in Russia nowadays and I will provide basic but important information about three parties except LDPR3 which analyze is my main theme. I will describe this party by itself - its program, the most significant members, its domestic and foreign politics. It will be determined the degree and the type of its opposition. If the LDPR is oppositional party, or presidential, or probably another type. The last part of this study will consist speculations about possible changes that could come on this actor in Russian political arena.

This bachelor thesis is focused on the present time, current politics of LDPR, although its background will be also mentioned for better understanding situation of nowadays in the Zhirinovsky's party under Russian political regime.

1.Theoretical part

Authoritarianism.

In order to correctly analyze Russian political parties we need also to know under what regime these parties exist. For this implementation it is comfortable to use the typology of non- democratic4 regimes by Spanish political scientist and sociologist Juan Jose Linz5. In his book totalitarian and authoritarian regimes" (Linz 2000) he took an inspiration from the earlier works by Brzezinski and Friedrich (1965), elaborated their assumptions and declared that there was at least one more regime, something between ideal democracy and ideal totalitarianism. He formulated the concept of authoritarianism.

In determining authoritarian regime he used two main dimensions - l)the level of limited political pluralism in such regimes and 2) the level of political apathy and demobilization of the population or the level of controlled mobilization.

3 LDPR - Liberal Democratic Party of Russia 4 Despite the fact that the author acknowledges the possible opinion of the democratic nature of Russian political system, the author by herself declares its regime as non-democratic, so this work is based on this axiom and does not investigate any aspects referring to democracy. 5 Indeed, we could take "delegational democracy" by Guillermo O'Donell's (O'Donell' 1994) or "non- liberal democracy" by Fareed Zakaria (Zakaria 2012) where both authors describe managed democracy with unlimited power of executive, but, in the opinion of the author of this work, Linz's concept of authoritarianism is the most suitable and illustrative. 7 Authoritarianism has (pseudo-)pluralism in its political practice, restricting only revolutionary movements that can threaten pluralism. For this it selectively prohibit dangerous for this regime parties, unions, organizations.

Authoritarianism tolerates the existence of such socialization factors as other political parties than power ruling party, the think-tanks, lobbyism. Authoritarianism considerably suppresses the free political market but does not forbid it at all. There is a "semifreedom" (Linz 2000: 170).

In this concept of authoritarianism there is clear distinction between it and totalitarianism and, moreover, it and democracy. Unlike the totalitarian regime there is an opposition in authoritarianism and no mass terror or an effort to expand. Authoritarianism suffers from the lack the power of totalitarian or democratic regimes, both totalitarian and democratic regimes have political stability and confidence in the future. While the concept of totalitarianism is a rare thing in our reality, the authoritarian regime in the modern society proved to be such a frequent type.

According to this concept we will analyze all political situations mentioned in this work.

Political party

Before we will discuss about Russian political parties we need to determine what the political party in general is. As well as different people have different opinions, there is a need to be really coherent and concrete in this theme.

Definition of this term tried to introduce W. Hasbach, M. Webeer, R. Aron... The truth is that no definition was universally acceptable. So I decided to use in my work minimal definition of political party by G. Sartori: "Political party is political group participating in elections via its representatives and is able to get them to public administrations". (Sartori 1976: 64). From his definition follows three characteristics: to participate in elections, to have its representatives and to try to get them to any administrative resources such as parliament.

Political parties and political regimes are interdependent. Parties impact on regime and regime impact on parties. Low level of political culture of Russian parties can be one of the limits of Russian democracy (Holzer 2004: 299) and political pluralism (Holzer 2000: 135).

After defining political party in general we can define the type of the political party6. The problem is that there are a great amount different typology from different scholars. Max Weber

6 if it is political party and not interest group 8 distinct parties according to their aims: world-wide, patronage, honoring. According to its political position there are left-wing, right-wing, centre. But we will analyze the only one typology related to the position of the party in administrative resources.

Oppositional political party

We need to understand that an opposition in democracy and an opposition in non-democratic state - these are two different types of opposition (Hlaváček - Holzer 2008). Some authors are even convinced that it is impossible to have an opposition in non-democratic regime (Skilling in Dahl 1973: 89). It must be remembered though that the authoritarian regime prevents the opposition political actors (not only parties) of its free functioning in official institutions like parliament while democracy does not. A lot of historians and political scientists studied the concept of the opposition under non-democratic regimes - above named Gordon H. Skilling (1973), Leonard Schapiro (1972), Vladimir Gelman (2005; 2015) - every author is interested in the only one concrete state and has his own theory and it seems impossible to generalize their assumptions. Skilling focused on the communist states and the period of the destanilisstion, Schapiro tried to generalize an opposition under non-democratic system but still was influenced by communist examples. Gelman is the specialist on Russia as well.

Gelman says that it is useful for us to think of opposition as a continuum (Gelman 2005). It can be described as at the moment when the one opposite party finish, there is necessarily an another - quasi- or semi-opposition party, organization or even individuals that are outside of ruling political institutes. Their aim is to reach government/parliament but in the time when they are, for example, in parliament, it is not necessarily for them to demand crucial reforms. For these opposition actors is enough just to be part of political system.

Not all parties will be in government. Some of them need to be in opposition to the government. So we can divide parties as parties that opposed to the government and parties that are in government. Opposition is very essential for the functioning of any democracy. Oppositional parties have the functions of control the government and criticizing it.

Not every opposition party in non-democratic regime should be non-systemic. Also it is not necessary that an opposition in non-democracy has political feature. It could be enough to have ecological or economic agenda. For example, according to Ghita Ionescu opposition in non- democratic regime applies to any attitude or action, agreed, spontaneous or deliberate, singular

9 or permanent, coming from formal or informal groups or individuals, carried out in all circumstances and by all means directed against existing power (Ionescu 1972).

When analyzing the types of opposition in Russia we will use primarily the typology of opposition in context of non-democratic regimes from Juana Linz. He applied it in connection with the events in Spain in 20th century under the power of Francisco Franco where opposition was divided into that what is within and that what is outside the political system of the state. Opposition that is within the system is semioposition and pseudo-opposition, while outside the system opposition is an allegal and illegal opposition. Generally, non-democratic regime suppresses illegal and allegal opposition and supports semi-oposition and pseudo-opposition in order to pretend about the appearance of political pluralism (Dahl 1973).

1. Semiopposition does not call into question the legitimacy of the current regime. This is a political actor that is not presented in official institutes or, if it is presented, does not dominate. Usually, it focuses on specific issues that seeks to solve. There are also some more types of semiopposition as supporters of current regime; supporters of international ideology; supporters of previous regime, supporters of the modernization of current regime; or, on the contrary, supporters of absence of any reforms but existing quo status; even supporters of authoritative regime - in case of war, for example where the powerful state and powerful leader are needed. We will not analyze these types in more detail due to the limits of characters of this work.

2. Pseudo-opposition is very similar to semiopposition and can be determined as a „branch" of semi-opposition. Pseudo-opposition criticize some tiny aspects of ruling policy and politics but still cooperates with the regime and does not criticize the main basic regime rules. Linz by himself did not focus on this type of the opposition.

3. Alegal opposition is not legal but tolerated and not persecuted by the regime. It requires basic political and economic changes and use only legal resources. Often there is international influence and help for organizing and functioning this kind of opposition. With the help of legal wherewithal actors and means alegal opposition are trying to change political, economic or social areas.

4. Illegal opposition is an extreme degree of the opposition under non-democratic regime. It is not tolerated by regime and, moreover, persecuted. It could be forbidden according the law but at the same time is recognized by state.

The boundaries between these types of opposition are not clear, they even may transfer from one type to another. (Linz 1973: 190-238). First two types of the opposition are classical 10 systemic functioning with the regime, two remaining are non-systemic that do not have to respect standard political practice.

Linz also says that opposition can be divided as loyal, semi-loyal and disloyal. According to Linz loyal opposition accepts legal means for political struggle and needs to reject of political violence. Disloyal opposition often uses illegal and violent means. Semi-opposition is ambiguous and has the residual nature (Linz 1978: 27-38)

To have a better and wider view on the concept of the oppositional political party we could use one more theory by Leonard Schapiro (1972) where he divided dissenting political activity into aa-out rejection, power struggle, political dissent, "pressure" group activity and pragmatic dissent. Because of limited scope of this work, however, it is more appropriate to have the only one political theory from Linz. So I can only refer reader to the bibliography if there is a need to know something more about functioning oppositional parties in context of non-democracy.

In the next capitol we will apply received conceptual information on the LDPR.

Case study: Russia

I decided to choose this topic for my bachelor thesis for the very clear reason - it is actual and popular theme in the Western world again. Since 1999 and since Putin has come to the power in Russian Federation and the world recognized his name, after creating The party in 2003, the number of relevant Russian political parties has significantly decreased. The party system has transformed from a highly fragmented into a consolidated. Putin in fact decided to have centralized state and he actually did it (Shiryaev 2010: 156 - 159)

The great interest to Russia of the Western expert and academic community in 1990s was pretty obvious - the collapse of the old imperium and seeking the new one, the new identity. After came and restore order in Russia on his way, interest of the West declined. Politicians and scholars seemed to accept the statement that Russia is a "normal country" as their own countries (with its own characteristics, of course). However, after Russian unacceptable and unexpected aggression in the , the annexation of the sovereign territory of independent state, Russia is again "in trend" (Gelman 2015).

For identifying the type of political regime in Russia we will take Juan Linz's categorization of opposition into account.

Russian authoritarianism

11 According to the definition of authoritarian political system by Linz (Linz 2000: 159) Russia is undoubtedly almost the pure example of non-democracy, more precisely - autocracy7 as well as it has all the mentioned characteristics of authoritarian regime. According to Linz, the main proof of this type of state regime is an existence of so-called limited pluralism. Indeed, in Russia de iure there is an article 13rd item 3 in the Constitution where declares political diversity and multiparty system - political pluralism and the article 29th item 1 where everyone is guaranteed for his freedom of thought and speech. De facto, all the parties8 are vassals of the power party - United Russia. Members of other parties are allowed to criticize, for example, environmental policy, to criticize particular members of parties of power - United Russia or Just Russia - but not the whole system (Dorofeyeva 2018). Executive power in Russia- government, prime minister and especially current president - they all have many options for influencing or restricting any political party.

The statement that Russian Federation has authoritarian character confirms also the organization Freedom House (Freedomhouse.org 2018) - Russia has long-term status "not free" and the intergovernmental organization OECD - due to denial of registration a number of parties and abnormal proximity of the state and the ruling party - United Russia, occasionally Just Russia as well - was created unequal conditions of political participating and the beneficial owner is, no doubts, ruling party (Svoboda.org 2018) Thus, we simply accept these affirmations as truthful and apply it on Russian reality.

It is necessary to admit that Russians have historically tended to find a strong leader, they have a lot of experience with non-democratic, even totalitarian regimes but, in contrast with the West civilization, Russians usually feel more comfortable in non-democratic regime than within democratic910. So it results from the belief that Russia is an autocracy and all the next assumptions should take it into consideration.

Russian political party.

Does the LDPR participate in elections? Actually, this political actor participated in every Parliament elections in modern Russia. Does the LDPR have its own members? According to

7 Author of this thesis considers that terms "autocracy" and "authoritarianism" are synonyms. 8 Hereinafter assumed that Party and political party are the same concepts used in this work. 9 The only one example of „true" principal democracy Russians had with Yeltsin - most of Russian citizens criticize this period because of his oligarchs, mafia, inflation.. Simply put, Russian have never had „good" experience with democracy. 10 See, for ex. discussion about whether Russia really needs democracy and, if it need, why it struggles so many problems „Nuzhna li demokratiya Rossii?" (Lyalenkova 2018) or the contribution of Grigorij Vaynshteyn (Vaynshteyn 1998) 12 Kommersant (Kommersant.ru 2008) the LDPR in 2008 had more than 155000 loyal people, in 2014 it had more than 230000 people (Tass.ru 2014). Is the LDPR able to get to the state political administration? The LDPR is in Parliament of every collocation. Thus, the LDPR is the true political party according to the concept of Sartori (1976).

As everything in Russia, every event, every phenomenon, Russian political party has its own characteristics of political party.

According to the item 1 of Article 3 of Federal Law No. 95 "About Political Parties", a political party in Russia is "a public association created for the purpose of participation in the political life of citizens of the Russian Federation through the formation and expression of their political will, in elections and referendums, as well as in order to represent the interests of citizens in state institutions and local governments" (Federal law 2001)

Political parties those organizations that are registered within the Ministry of Justice and have a minimum of 10,000 members in 43 out of 85 federation entities that are listed. At the same time, at least 500 members must be registered in the party (Federal law 2001).

The four biggest and the most popular political actors (Just Russia, United Russia, CPRF11 and LDPR - the last two even consists term "party" in its name) are considered as political parties according to this law as well. Also they are not in contrast with the concept and its definition of party1213

After simplifying the procedure for registering new political parties in 2012 the Ministry of Justice got a lot of applications of organizations to become a party. As of September 3rd 2018 there are 64 political parties that are officially registered on the territory Russian Federation (Ministry of Justice 2018). The great increase of number of political parties happened after riots 2011 in - the United Russia wanted to strengthen its legitimacy. Notwithstanding the real number of relevant parties remain the same.

11 CPRF - The Communist Party of the Russia n Federation 12 In contrast, for example, with the „Open Russia" founded by dissident Khodorkovsky has all the features of political party but as well as it does not fulfill the conditions of the Federal law considers as informal social organization. 13 The PARNAS founded by the oppositionist Kas'yanov became officially registered party in Russia only after the statement of the European Court of Human Rights that declared about unlawful denial of registration of the party. 13 In modern Russia there are still four main relevant political parties - United Russia, Just Russia, CPRF and LDPR14. From the very formation of United Russia in 2001 it was the ruling party, "party of power" and has never changed its privileged position so far. Just Russia is an artificial creature created in 2006, kind of branch of United Russia but formally it does not have its representatives in government and it could be considered as the loyal opposition. It was formed to gain opposite votes from opposite parties (first of all, votes from CPRF) and a lot of its representatives are former members of the JR. The next party is LDPR that adjusts under any circumstances, agrees with its secondary role when it is possible to criticize, for example, individual members of the government or making secondary reforms but not to question the correctness of the political flow of Russia within the country and abroad. And the last party that is worth to mention is CPRF - communists actually do not have real political power but they have their own ambitions which they are trying to impose under the conditions of the undemocratic regime.

Russian Oppositional political party

The concept of the "opposition" is really specific in the opinion of some scholars: if in the Western countries it is legal and respected part of the political process, in Russia usually respectful opposition is not a part of the state system, but something that is outside it (Mukhametshina 2016).

The true disloyal opposition members do not work in parliament15 (This statement occurred not because it is shame to be a deputy in Russian Parliament but because it is really hard to get into parliament - parties are unable to overcome 5% barrier because of restrictions of financing, state media monopoly, violations at polling stations, lack of interest to the elections of opposition-minded citizens...). In the opinion of some, the real opposition in Russia is non- systemic alegal disloyal opposition that does not refuse to cooperate with parliament parties but simply has no option to do this. Its representatives are Navalny, Khodorkovsky, Kas'yanov,

14 The „Yabloko" is not considered as relevant deliberately because of its irrelevant election results last 10 years and disinterest in party by Russian mass media, among the population and inside the party by itself. 15 The term parliament" in this thesis means which is the lower and the most important house of the bicameral Russian parliament called Federal Assembly. 14 Sobchak . The great example of non-systemic alegal oppositional party is party of Mikhail Khodorkovsky "Open Russia"17.

"Russia is not neatly authoritarian in the same way that Uzbekistan or Belarus are, but the ability of society to work with the political system to resolve problems has diminished from what was already a low base over the last few years" (Robinson 2012: 10). Nonetheless, political parties in Russia are not independent actors because of the political regime where they are. So the opposite parties do not even have a decisive influence on executive power. In fact, the only one party that makes sense is the United Russia18

Not paradoxically, not everyone considers above-named Just Russia, CPRF, LDPR as oppositional in a certain sense of meaning (Isakov 2009: 8). We apply the studied theory by J. Linz and define if it is any kind of oppositional party according to him.

Is the LDPR in the Russian government? There is no liberal-democratic face in the government so we can conclude at least for this period of time the LDPR is an opposition. As well as the LDPR is in Russian parliament and conforms with the current political system and does not require to change the political system as a whole. Although it is in Parliament, the LDPR last 20 years has never have dominant position over there. It was always focused on single issues, not on the whole system. Nowadays it is an excessive attention to geopolitics to the detriment of the economics and insufficient attention to the regional agenda. The LDPR is an example of systemic semiopposition.

Both LDPR and KPRF are loyal oppositions according to the Linz's concept - although many statements and some actions of members of the LDPR call conflicting opinions, one thing is certain - the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia has always acted within the framework of the law, although on its borders and did not use violence, although supported using of it in context of fight against terrorism, civil war, etc. This kind of opposition, the systemic opposition, cannot became a threat to the United Russia because each of these parties have a limited presence in the regions and parliament, limited budget. They absolutely rarely are able to control executive or legislative in state or even in state's subject. Institutional rules ensure possible expulsion such

16 It could be long discussion about systemic or non-systemic character of Ksenia Sobchak. According to poll center "VTSIOM" Ksenia Sobak was ranked by only 1% respondents as the member of non- systemic opposition (in the same time Navalny was considered to non-systemic opposition by 15% respondents (rbc.ru 2017). 17 The fact it is officially not party has already mentioned. 18For clarifying level of opposition of some political actors there is an annex no. 3 in the end of the thesis. 15 opposition from political acting if they constitute a real threat. The existing itself of the LDPR depends on Russian executive (see paragraph 2.2.4.) that is why the LDPR never openly criticize Russian foreign policy but only support presidential course (see 2.2.5.).

2. Analytical part

2.1 Political system in Russia.

The current political system in Russia were founded with the new Constitution that became effective in 1993. In many aspects there is a huge difference between formal decrees and Russian reality. For example, in the very first article of the Constitution of the RF there is a statement that".. Russia is a democratic federal ruling of law state..." (Constitution of the RF, 1st article, first clause). We proceed from the statement about non-democratic political character of Russia.

All parties represented (and some that are not represented in the Parliament) are extremely useful not only for the Russian society but primarily for the Russian president, government and elites because success or lost of any political party is kind of litmus paper showing how satisfied people with the current situation in the state.

Nowadays we can see that despite the economic sanctions and subsequent internal economic problems, international isolation, ambiguous pension reform etc. - Russian citizens are satisfied with the ruling politics because they voted for this19.

As already indicated above, Russian political system is pure authoritarianism and in this context of non-democracy all political actors, all political parties have to exist, if they want to exist.

2.2 The LDPR

One of the most recognizable and popular Russian parties in Russia and abroad is the LDPR. The choice of the LDPR was dictated by its long-term presence on the political arena in Russia (and even USSR). This is an actual and interesting theme for analyzing for more than 20 years

19 On last legislative elections in State Duma ruling party JR won with 54% result - more than half of population prefers ruling party and the current direction of the politics to any other and do not want unpredictable reforms that could reveal from the initiative of an opposite party. 16 mainly because of its permanent leader and flamboyant person who is popular for his controversies both in Russia and beyond its borders.

Despite its name, Russian political scientists are constantly doubting about its liberal ideology (Sukhanova 2007) and rejecting this liberal ideology the absolute majority of foreign political scientists (Holzer 2004: 210), and often describing it as a (ultra-)nationalist party2021 (Holzer 2004: 304). Nevertheless, the concept of liberalism and patriotism in perception of a large part of the population that are not interested in politics and ideologies is associated (only) with the LDPR party and its leader (Zirkon.ru. 2005).

Since its founding, party has positioned itself as an oppositional (to the previous regime and the CPRF, at least) party, which is also disputed by political scientists (Golosov 2018 ), mass media (Meduza 2018; Nsn.fm 2018 ) and Russian and international public. Basically, I do not agree with the statement that in the current Russian political system there is no opposition - either systemic that needs a change of political power or a non-systemic that rejects the established rules of the political life, - or that the only one opposition party in the State Duma is (White 2011: 658). In the previous chapter though we have established that the LDPR is the truly political party in Russia and that because of authoritarian agenda of Russia the LDPR is an example of semiopposition party. That means its really limited political options. So the position of the author of the thesis is that the LDPR is the specific kind of oppositional party. It does not have the same protest level, financial independence and popularity among the nation as National Front in France, but still it is opposition.

2.2.1. Origins and history (up to the present)

"Party that reaching 10 percent of votes may have a much smaller influence than the party that has 3 percent"

20 In Russian political culture designation „nationalist", nationalism" is perceived usually with negative suspicion due to its similarity with Nazism. 21 Consciously and sometimes unconsciously replaces the words "russkij" and "rossijskij" that is pretty sensitive topic for society (lenta.ru 2017). For example, he posted during his presidential campaign in 2018 on his official account on Twitter: "The state-forming nation of Russia are Russians, which makes up 80% of the country's population. An important step should be the changing in the preamble of the Constitution of the Russian Federation statement "we, multinational people of the Russian Federation" to "we, Russians and the other nations of Russia"" - Zhirinovsky's Twitter 14th March, 2018. This caused a great resonance in society, especially among "the other nations of Russia". His provocation worked properly, as usual and caused certain convictions from representatives from both non-title and titular nations. 17 (Sartori 2005: 126).

De facto Liberal Democratic Party of the or LDPSU was formed in 1989 but it became officially registered two years later in April 1991 - it became the first officially oppositional to the communists party.

In August 1991 the LDPR, which was absolute critique of the USSR and communist ideology nevertheless supported President Gorbachev and stated against Yeltsin (LDPR. Istorija undated).

In December 1991 Soviet Union was officially collapsed and its successor state became Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia or LDPR was created as its successor in Russian Federation. During the 1990s, there were four party-political camps: 1) the communists (CPRF) and the Agrarian Party of Russia (APR); 2) the liberals (DR and VR22 and Yabloko23); 3)the supporters of the president (a group 10 different diverse little parties); and 4) the nationalists and patriots (LDPR).

Since period the LDRP took a strong stable position in the parliament, it even won the first free elections in Russia in 199324. It happened in the moment when the country has been experiencing a real shock caused by the tragedy in October 1993 during the confrontation between Yeltsin and the Parliament. The leader of the LDPR managed to distance of this incident, the party was not by anyone's political side and took a waiting position.- this action got Zhirinovsky to unexpected and unplanned success. It was attracted mainly for the protest voters.

In 1993 the main political powers - legislative and executive - did not take Zhirinovsky seriously, and it was absolutely not right strategy25 - this year wasthe year of the biggest electoral success so far.

In December 1995 there were the elections to the State Duma of the second convocation. The party has famously failed - only 3rd place, the winner is the CPRF. At this period of time there

22 Vybor Rossiya - Russia's choice 23 Yabloko - Yavlinsky, Boldyrev, Lukin 24 See the annex no.l in the end of the thesis 25 There can be a parallel between these events in 1993 in Russian parliament elections and the events in 2016 in the American presidential elections - no one from American high politics could have supposed Trump was able to won these elections. 18 was really difficult situation in the state - inflation, war in , a large number of criminal activities - Russian nation decided to return to "before-perestrojka" time.

In 1996 were held the elections of the President of the Russian Federation. Zhirinovsky took the 5th place with 5.78% of the vote26.

19th of December 1999 there were held third elections to the Parliament. 6 parties including the LDPR overcame 5% clause and were represented in the Parliament. CPRF is the leading party again even with more strengthened results. "Zhirinovsky's bloc" took only 5,93% votes.

31 December 1999 resignation of Yeltsin and, respectively, Putin became Acting President of the Russian Federation. Later he prolonged his presidential mandate that was the turning point not only in history of the LDPR but in all Russian history27.

One of the most noticeable results of the first presidential term of Vladimir Putin (1999-2000; 2000-2004) is a sharp reduction of the political influence of all political parties claiming to be the opposition including the LDPR.

In 2003 there were elections to the State Duma of the forth collocation. Only 3 parties including the LDPR and one new bloc Rodina overcame 5% clause and were represented in the Parliament. The LDPR gained 11,45% votes. Very impressive was the motto of the LDPR for these elections: "We are for pure people, we are for "russkiye" people" which was probably caused by the Russian-Chechen war and subsequent terror attacks by Chechen groups and individuals on "russkiye".

In 2007 were held the 5th elections where clause became 7%, disappeared an option to vote "against all". First time in Russian history elections had proportional and not majority system. 4 parties including the LDPR overcame 7% clause and were represented in the parliament.

In 2011 were held the 6th elections to the parliament and 4 parties that could overcome 7% clause including the LDPR with 11,67% result.

In 2016 were held so far the last 7th parliamentary elections. 5% clause overcame 4 parties including the LDPR with 13,14% result.

26 See annex no.2 in the end of the thesis 27 Obviously, I do not have ambitions to describe all the political events in the modern history of Russia. I pay attention only to the main milestones that are connected to the LDPR. 19 In February 2017 was officially approved the new institution of the LDPR - Presidium faction. The main functions of the Presidium are to promptly resolve party issues, as well as issues related to making laws.

At the presidential elections in March 2018 Zhirinovsky gained 5.65% and predictable third place.

On the 9 September 2018 regional elections were held in Russia. In Khabarovsk and Vladimir regions candidates from the LDPR won28. Interesting that this event did not cause any stir within the party, as if party was not satisfied with it (Newizv.ru 2018).

2.2.2. Leadership's phenomenon

"My mother was Russian and my father was a lawyer"

The modern political system of the world, the Westphalian system, is a state-centered model of the world where the main actors are states.

But at the end of XX with the end of Cold war there are new actors of the political world in which some untraditional actors are much more influential than traditional actors in international relationships, these new actors include individuals.

Ancestry of Zhirinovsky, Zhirinovsky does not prevent him from expressing his anti-Semitic 29 views To vote for the Liberal Democratic Party means to vote personally for Zhirinovsky. But Mr. Zhirinovsky is an extremely unpleasant person by himself from the point of view of the great part of Russian people. (There are a lot of TV shows where he speaks disrespectfully about women, with women, speaks controversy about Muslim population in Russia and out of its border, uses dirty expressive words - all that makes him not the right one candidate for voting). On the other side, Zhirinovsky is capable of sobriety and reasonableness at the right time. He just knows his voters who need this kind of behavior from him.

28 However, people did not vote for the LDPR - they voted against actual political power - against the United Russia and its representatives (Meduza 2018). 29 The statements about his intolerance to member of any of non-title nation group in Russia and outside were held by a lot of famous Russian and non-Russian politicians and political scientists and media (compare: tengrinews.kz 2014) 20 They do take Zhirinovsky absolutely seriously, consider him as a sincere and courageous politician who is not afraid to tell the truth to the authorities. For the majority of Russian citizens though the LDPR is the most oppositional party that exists in Russia.

Since 2010 Vladimir Zhirinovsky has been working with his Twitter account in order to expand his electorate among youth. In Twitter he clarifies his political attitudes and expresses his opinion on the most important events all over the world.

Internet TV channel LDPR-TV was created in 2017 - that action supposes to attract new people who will support the LDPR on different levels.

"We are choosing not only the owner of the whole Russian land, but also the owner of the entire planet, because without Russia no one can solve anything" (Zhirinovsky's Twitter, March 18th 2018).

Personalization does not just change, very often it makes a policy. We can see this most clearly in recent decades at the level of a large polity - Trump, Erdogan, Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping. In such cases, the identity of one person gains much more weight in the eyes of the public than any abstract ideology of a political party or even the ideology of the whole country. Obviously, it is not ideology that makes this outstanding abstract person, but this person who makes ideology, which, in turn, establishes forms of domination and power at a certain level. For clarity, we can recall from the Russian modern history the presidential elections in Russia in 1996, when people did not choose Yeltsin as an individual30, but did not choose Zyuganov as a representative of the Communist Party and the personification of the past, which they did not want to return. Or an absolutely recent example of the same voting for an idea into the Russian reality was brought by the presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak in her election campaign, where she tried to convince the people to vote not specifically for Ksenia Sobchak31, but against all of them. All of these are opposed examples - examples of non-personal policy. Yet, despite the presence of these examples, Russia is the country of leaders, moreover, its long- term absolute monarchy past only confirms this. In Russia, this concept of personalization became very popular along with such figures as Mikhail Gorbachev, Anatoly Sobchak, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Boris Yeltsin.

30 Although Yeltsin had very bright and recognizable political image but in that case it did not matter so much. 31 However in case of K.Sobchak her person was crucial for the society as well as the great part of Russian had bad impression about Sobchak - they simply did not vote for her (Dergachev 2017). 21 There is no doubt, Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky is a flamboyant person and his extravagance is also the big part of his job. As a matter of fact, phenomenon of Zhirinovsky is so significant that when we are talking about the LDPR - we are talking mostly about Zhirinovsky, when we are talking about Zhirinovsky - we are talking about the LDPR. His opinion about pension reforms - the opinion of the whole party. He actually does not have really big political ambitions, he just enjoys to be a Russian celebrity, Russian Donald Trump (Sputniknews 2018). Despite the fact that Zhirinovsky has so extensive power and an impact in his own party that it is more appropriate to compare him not with D.Trump who has really limited power but with the Russian president in context of the Russian state. Both Putin and Zhirinovsky have absolutely power in they own areas, the difference is that Russia is not enough for Putin, and the LDPR is more than enough for Zhirinovsky. This statement among other things is proved by the previous chapter where there was declared that the LDPR in fact did not try to win in the regional elections and, after unexpected wining in two regions, behaved quite strange for the party that want political power. The personalist nature of the Liberal Democratic Party leads to the fact that Zhirinovsky is inclined to solve any problem as his personal problem with the authorities (Hockstader 1994). The extreme power of Zhirinovsky's phenomena in the LDPR party proved by the fact that Zhirinovsky by himself decided to became vegetarian in 2013, soon he strongly recommended this practice to all his close coworkers and added that step by step all the LDPR party will consist only vegetarian members (Kommersant 2013). The thing is, sometimes there is confrontation between the image of the politician created in the mass media and his real characteristics and political convictions. The problem became a real problem when his real motivation and abilities are not the same as he promised. There are obvious manipulations with the consciousness of the nation that is one of the favorite courses of political actions of all nationalist politician including Zhirinovsky. With his strange and often ridiculous statements he is checking people's reaction on particular problems (Kochergin 2015).

2.2.3. Membership and the program

The Liberal Democratic Party is notorious as the party that has been selling deputy seats to businessmen to be in Parliament in 90s, in early 2000s32 and there are some allegations of nowadays (Karta narusheniy na vyborach 2018). With the help of the Liberal Democratic Party

32 The ruling party the United Russia has another „custom" - it does not sell deputy seats but just gives it to Russian celebrities - actors, sportsmen, singers (Twickel 2011) 22 of Russia some criminal figures also could became deputies (Korgunyuk 2010: 108). Notorious example of these ambigious actions of the LDPR is membership of Andrey Lugovoy from 2011 who is still suspected in involvement in the murder of KGB and later FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. He is still wanted by British police, by the way.

From the point of view of the electoral base: The electoral core of the LDPR are middle-aged people, whose political socialization was in the last Soviet decade, from which they gained a persistent hatred of the communists. Usually these voters do not have high education. The LDPR is more popular among men than women because of their affection to protests33

The LDPR by itself declares about its right-wing position but this self-definition is very disputed. The program includes mix of the Russian superpower chauvinism and also left-wing populism The program of the LDPR has clear populist statements when difficult issues are supposed to be solved in simple ways. For some important social political economic challenges the LDPR does not have solutions but only criticism of ruling party (zab.ru 2018). For the latest legislative elections to the State Duma in 2016 I could not find its special program, so I can guess representatives of this party decided to use the general official program and do not waste time trying to invent some new ideas.

Sometimes positions towards to particular issues are self-contradictory. For example, the LDPR is against the current political system in Russia and against the West but not against Putin34. Or they argue, on the one hand, about the necessarily of economic protectionism - support for unemployment, health care, regulating prices on vital product if it is necessary; state monopoly on alcohol, tobacco, sugar (Iakovleva 2015) but, on the other hand, in the same time they accept economic liberalism. Another item of the LDPR is an attracting citizens of the Russian state to move to the unpopulated regions as Ural and the Far East regions. The problem is that they just state this idea and do not promote it - do not buy cottages for their children over there, do not suggest to move the capital of Russia to Kamchatka, for example. This is just another illogical populist statement.

33 The fact is that on the very first parliament elections V.V. Zhirinovsky managed to convince a great amount of women to vote for him and for his party promising to ladies to solve all their problems and to "find for every woman a right man." (Markaryan 2017) 34 In these populist and opposite statement s the party is really similar to rhetoric of Just Russia. 23 Party also requires to have strong army and police. Liberal-democrats as nationalist in fact have tough politics towards to immigrants - "Russia for Russians". The position of the LDPR on state system is based on three main principles: the unity of the territory - unitary republic, the unity of power - a strong powerful president as the guarantor of unity, the unity of the people with the state-forming role of the people with Russian nationality. There is a clear support of monarchical and tyrannical practices. It declares about necessarily of political power turnover but Zhirinovsky by himself is the head of the party more than 25 years that breaks principles of the party program (Program of LDPR undated).

The LDPR has almost no opportunity for coalition potential with the KPRF because of incompatibility of their ideologies. So the only one chance to be in Russian government for the LDPR is to cooperate with power parties - weather United Russia or Just Russia. This will be automatically mean that this party is not even semi-opposition, it will became just loyal to the executive party, As a result, they can lose their protest voters, and consequently, marginalize. In order not to have this faith I tend to believe the LDPR does not have coalition potential at all so it will remain as a system opposition/quasi/opposition/loyal opposition/semi/opposition actor on the Russian political arena. In fact, without support of the power parties, all these program statements and ideas are for vain.

2.2.4. Domestic policy

The LDPR party is absolutely dependent on government funding: it had 80,7% in 2009 (Korgunyuk 2010: 115) and it was the most massive financial investment till 2017 when all the main system parties gained maximum support in percentage the modern Russian history - LDPR took 97%. It means LDPR's financial dependence on money from the government in 2017 is the strongest over the past 8 years. The most independent period from the government this party had in 2011 when its budget contained only 16% of donations from the state (Lindell and Dergachev 2018).

2.2.5. Foreign affairs

In sense of members of the LDPR party 24 Its foreign politics focused to the South36, not to the West. Its foreign is conservative anti- European, anti-American, anti-NATO dispositions. There is a hope about rebranding monarchy. The reason why this model of behavior exist in Russian politics is to make others system parties (mainly United Russia), pro-governmental actors, even president to look good in comparison. The LDPR insists on maintaining Russian presence in Syria and the eastern regions of the Ukraine. The fact of the Ukraine's existence is an "error" of the soviet so the LDPR insists on inclusion of the South-East part of the Ukraine to Russia and an external control by Russia of the remaining territory of Ukraine (Khachaturov 2018).

2.2.6. Assumptions about the future of the party's fate

There is no doubt that this party will exist in the near future (even if on the next parliament elections it does not have 5% clause for being in parliament, it will gain at least 3% votes of loyal to the party citizens and will have financial support from the state so it will not be another marginalized party in Russia).

In Europe there are a lot of politicians who use the prevailing society's atmosphere of frustration and political fatigue and, playing on these moods, they come to power or, at least, gain significant influence on their potential voters, they are not marginal anymore. The LDPR is a part of this trend. This kind of leader can have an impact not only on his own party, but also on the state's politics. The great example of personalized politics is Slovak president Andrej Kiska who has never participated in political affairs before 2014 - it could be one of the main factors for his winning - Slovak voters were disappointed, both in the right and in the left parties, especially were disappointed and did not agree with the actions of the "main" political party in Slovakia "SMER" and its leader Robert Fico that had reputation of pro-Russian politics. Another example is the Czech leader od "ANO" Andrej Babis invited his potential voters to submit his manner of political actions as the manager of the company, where the Czech Republic is the company. In this case the object for the LDPR for the successful and more influential politics is to persuade Russian people that they can be disappointed with the results of the ruling state politics as well as Slovaks or Czechs have already done.

Perspective of the opposition after Zhirinovsky

36 V. Zhirinovsky is an expert in „South ", especially Turkey, instead of the West, focus on China, India, Iran, Venezuela 25 LDPR (with the CPRF) is the only relevant opposition party in the parliament. It has its own consistent policy since its creation in 1989 and registration in 1991 - party headed by Zhirinovsky accepted its subsidiary loyal to the Kremlin role. Undoubtedly, under Zhirinovsky party will not challenge any big changes.

Due to the fact that the party is tied in the first place to Vladimir Zhirinovsky, as it ages, it finds itself in front of a serious challenge.. If there are any reasons for the LDPR's party to lost its stability in the Russian political arena - it is the Zhirinovsky's exit (in all senses) from his own party. As of November 2018 he is currently 73 years old and he has still not founded his successor and, as we already know, this is an absolutely huge challenge for such specific party as LDPR which is founded on the concrete person. It needs to have as confident and stylish leader as Zhirinovsky is in order to, at least, have the same 5-8 percentage of voters on the political scene.

Vladimir Volfovich has his son Igor Lebedev who has been working in high politics from the late nineties but, unfortunately for the LDPR, he does not have nor temperament, nor recognizability, nor the ambivalence of the statements and actions of his father so there is really little chance for him to become the next leader of the LDPR. Others possible candidates current State Duma LDPR's deputies Vasily Vlasov, Mikhail Degtyarev, Alexander Kurdyumov, Boris Chernyshov, Yaroslav Nilov, Alexey Didenko are also not remarkable general white-collars.

Nowadays the party needs to look for new charismatic persons but, at the same time, focus on their program, speak more about their agenda, and not on with their leader. This is true that party can be successful confident stable party only if it survives after leaving its first leader, its founder. Exclusively after this event there is a sense to speak about its success or not success on political scene. In such situation in which the LDPR is now there is no chance for surviving (Nsn.fm 2018). But it is Russia, not pragmatic "West", so everything is really unpredictable and easily changing.

Perspective of the opposition under Putin

Famous Russian political analyst Aleksander Dugin in 2007 mentioned that there are no more opponents of Putin and his political course, all his existing opponents are mentally ill and they need to have proper medical care. "Putin is everywhere, Putin is everything, Putin is absolute, Putin is irreplaceable". (Sokolov 2007). From that moment have already passed 11 years but this statement is still more than actual.

26 In fact, Zhirinovsky with his party are under Putin's regime since 1999 years - more than 18 years. All this time he was extremely loyal to Putin, supported war in Georgia in 2008, supported the annexation of the Crimea, he, for example, criticized the recent pension reform37, but he did not criticize the President himself who allowed into consideration this extremely unpopular among the nation reform.

Recent days, however, there is changes premonition among Russian elites. Putin is 66 years old now and, probably, has the latest presidential mandate38 but still even after his retirement from the post of the he will be relatively young and smart and he will do his best to remain as the most influence person in Russia no matter who is Russian president at that time. This implies, as long as Putin exists, the party will be preserved and will receive its subsidies from the state budget, as they have always received all these years. All this will be, however, only if he says exactly what is allowed to say for him. As long as Putin is stronger, Zhirinovsky will keep supporting him (compare Wiadomosci 2014). He is loyal to political force and respect it, but, very likely, when someone more powerful came, Zhirinovsky will betray Putin and his group.

Conclusion

To sum it up, today it is difficult to talk about the Russian democratic opposition parties that are capable to represent and realize the interests of Russians. It is not the problem of the only LDPR but the whole party system in Russia. It can be explained, in particular, by the existence of the authoritarian political regime, low level of civic culture of Russians and unwillingness of Russian people to have changes in general. Current problems for the LDPR are an orientation not to the positive reforms but to the personal material gain and to compromise with any government. The LDPR has just symbolic role of opposition, in fact, that is not enough even for international community.

Zooming out to the larger picture, the prospects of consolidation (or at least better coordination) within the opposition camp remain a major political stake. At the moment, the Kremlin should

37 Zhirinovsky posted on his Twitter: „LDPR did not give any single vote for raising of the retirement age! Raising the retirement age is like a burden for our citizens. Our citizens do not want such a low- quality life, and we are standing for them, not for the government" - Zhirinovsky's Twitter, 19th July 2018. 38 According to the valid constitution it is supposed to be the last mandate for Putin (Constitution of the RF, article 81 clause 3) 27 feel comfortable with the situation in Russia where all the opposition is divided and the LDPR is satisfied with its role.

The aim of the thesis was classical description and analysis of one the main political actors in Russia - the LDPR , to define its opposition potential under undemocratic nature of the Russian regime and to assume its future perspective on the political arena. My goal was not to analyze the whole political system in Russia but only his part via the theory of oppositional parties under non-democratic regimes from Juan Linz. Case study suggested in the end of the thesis how the opposition represented by the LDPR should act in order to increase its political influence.

The whole his political life Zhirinovsky has been discrediting the system opposition movement because of his often overly extravagant behavior, sometimes he even could transform political debate into a kind of clowning (Shevchenko 2014, Novaya Gazeta 2009).

This bachelor thesis was engaged to with the political party of LDPR (where we proved that it is really political party) and its problematic position under authoritarian political system of the contemporary Russian Federation. I tried to be unbiased and objective in all senses, not to give any normative evaluations to the party's actions. My work includes two main aims - to describe the LDPR in context of nondemocratic Russia and to analyze the LDPR in context of non- democratic Russia. I guess I fully met these objectives.

It is necessary and important to study and analyze the opposition not only in democratic regimes where it is more or less clear and lawful but also in non-democratic regimes (in our case - autocracy) such as Russia to have knowledge about all kind of political opposition and see the political situation in Russia, in "the East" - economic and political partner of "the West" - more complete.

I hope there is a certain contribution to academic society thanks to this thesis.

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• Constitution of the RF. 1993. (http://www.constitution.ru/)

Internet sources

• Freedomhouse.org 2018. „Freedom in the World 2018". (https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/russia) • Karta narusheniy na vyborach. 2018. (https://www.kartanarusheniy.org/2018-09- 23/S/1546396600) • LDPR. Undated. Istorija. (https://ldpr.ru/party/History of the Liberal Democratic Party/) • Program of the LDPR. Undated. (https://ldpr.ru/party/Program LDPR/) • YouTube video. Kochergin Andrey. 2015. Manipulacii narodom cherez Yhirinovskogo (httDs://vk.com/im?sel=91221464&z=video91221464 456239093%2F738c541be0d6e qa2e6)

All internet online sources used in this thesis were opened and were active by 3.12.2018

Annexes

1.

Elections to the Parliament % And (the position) 1993 22,9 (won) 1995 11,2 (3rd)

33 1999 6 (6th) 2003 11,45 (3rd) 2007 8.14 (3rd) 2011 ll,7(4th) 2018 13,2 (3rd) Sources: (the graph was proceeded on data basis through the Excel program)

2.

Presidential elections % and (the winner)

199139 8 (Yeltsin) 1996 5,8 (Yeltsin) 2000 2,7 (Putin)

200440 2 (Putin) 2008 9,5 (Medvedev) 2012 6,2 (Putin) 2018 5,7 (Putin)

Sources: (the graph was proceeded on data basis through the Excel program)

3. The degree of the opposition

Oppositional party

Non-systemic illegal opposition disloyal

Non-systemic alegal opposition

39 Were held in Russian SFSR - Soviet Federative Socialist Republic 40 The only one time when the candidate for the president from the LDPR became not V.V. Zhirinovsky but Oleg Malyshkin - also member of LDPR and former guard of Vladimir Zhirinovsky. 34 Jabloko loyal/semi-loyal

KPRF representatives of semiopposition

LDPR

Just Russia parties of power

United Russia

Non-oppositional party

Sources: author's work based on the Linz's theory (1973; 1978; 2000)

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