The Input of History to Vladimir Putin.
In spite of seeming revolutionary, Putin’s reforms to strengthen the Russian state are not a novelty. In other words, Russia has had it all before.
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Vertical Russia
Last week, Russian president Vladimir Putin made known to the government and the governors his vision of the national fight against terrorism. This vision implies a fundamental change in the country's political system.
On September 13, Vladimir Putin called for an expanded meeting of the government with the participation of the heads of all subjects of the federation. From the very fact that such an event was held (representatives of executive power gather in such wide composition only for the yearly address of the president to the Federal Assembly), the conclusion could be made that the president would speak of extraordinary matters. The speech he delivered fully confirmed these assumptions.
Putin said that in the conditions of a drastic activation of terrorism, the system of executive power in the country “must be seriously reorganized with the purpose of reinforcing the country's unity to prevent further crises.” Such reorganization should induce central and regional executive power to work like a “united, subordinate and integrated organism.” The president suggested that integration and subordination be organized by canceling nationwide elections of governors and electing them in regional parliaments after nomination by the president. Besides that, political parties, which are to be built up by a proportional system of elections, should also take part in the fight with terrorism and reinforcing the vertical of authority.
After that, Putin stated a broad range of ideas on mobilizing the nation to fight terrorism. However, against the background of those revolutionary suggestions to change the political system, all his other ideas were of little significance.
Political Innovation
Of course, the absence of any relationship between terror and the reforms suggested is impossible to ignore. It should be understood, however, that the president is in a difficult position. On one hand, he had to respond decisively to the unprecedented series of extreme terrorist acts and their large number of casualties. The brave statement by Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff Yury Baluevsky about Russia shooting the terrorists, regardless of their location, as a preventive measure, is obviously not enough. It can be remembered that, in September of 2002, Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov made similar announcements and even named the place for the possible preventive attacks – Pankis Gorge in Georgia. But it did not stop Chechen rebels from seizing the Nord-Ost musical. That is why Putin had to introduce something more fundamental.
On the other hand, he was not able to suggest any real, and like the president likes to say, “effective” means to fight terror. During the five years of Putin's counter-terrorist activity, it became obvious that terrorists do not use toilets. That is why the president decided to hit more accessible targets; in the toilets there were governors and the electoral rights of citizens. So really there was no need to think up anything fundamentally new. The idea of governors being appointed and the introduction of a proportional system of elections have been roaming the Kremlin for a long time and sooner or later would have been realized anyway. The events at Beslan were a good excuse to strengthen his personal authority to even a greater degree.
Judging from a practical point of view, the new election system does not promise to bring any particular changes. During the times of “manageable democracy,” the Kremlin almost always got the “right” people elected governors. The presence of single mandate deputies in the Duma did not keep the Kremlin administration from creating a constitutional pro-presidential majority party, United Russia, consisting of two-thirds of deputies after the December 2003 election – in spite of the fact that only a third of the voters voted for the party. There are two things that make it different now. First, after realization of the new presidential initiatives, the “right” governors will always be elected and isolated failures of the system, such as the sensational victory in the elections in Altai Territory by humorist-performer Mikhail Evdokimov, will be excluded. Secondly, the change in the election system reflects the general tendency of the Kremlin toward simplifying relations between various links in the vertical of authority. In order to “process” regional deputies to make them vote for the governor introduced by the president, no large-scale campaigns in the federal media, or cooperation of the heads of local administrations or members of election committees will be needed any longer. The same pertains to elections to the State Duma. The Kremlin will no longer need to scatter its powers and use resources to recruit single-mandate deputies of different stripes into the pro-president fraction.
At the same time, from the point of national development, Putin's plan is a principally new turn in Russian politics. By announcing these reforms, Putin crossed the Rubicon, which separated democracy, even though it was “manageable,” from authoritarianism. Until now, the Kremlin tried to make its actions at least look legal while it was limiting democratic rights and freedoms. NTV was taken away from Vladimir Gusinsky with the help of the Criminal Code and the law on joint-stock companies. The national anthem by Aleksandrov was voted for by two-thirds of the deputies, which is in full accordance with Constitution. And even Khodorkovsky is being judged by a legitimate Russian court, using on existing legislation.
By canceling the national elections of governors, the Kremlin has finally given up the supremacy of traditional rights, preferring the right of power, the kind that guides the lives of animals and human criminal communities. The president changed the procedure for electing governors simply by the rights of the “leader of the pack,” thanks to a tamed Duma and Federation Council, which will approve any bill introduced by the head of state. This means that, in the next three and a half years of the presidential term, there will be no need for Putin to consult the law.
Constitutional Difficulties
Nevertheless, the president can meet a number of legal difficulties, linked first of unwillingness to change the constitution, as he tries to realize his current initiatives.
Putin's opponents suppose that the suggested new procedure to elect governors does not contradict the Constitution. In January 1996, the Constitutional Court ruled that Altai Territory statutes on the election of the territory's head of the administration by the Legislative Assembly contradicted the Constitution. According to the Constitutional Court, such a procedure for electing the head of a region violates the principle of separation of authority and limited the executive authority's scope of power. Besides that, the introduction of candidates to lead an RF subjects on approval by the regional parliament is not listed among the president's responsibilities, as ensconsed in the Constitution.
If the Kremlin insists, however, all these legal difficulties can be overcome. First, the practice of appointing governors was used from 1993 to1996, although it was not mentioned in the Constitution (at that time, however, no federal law defining the procedure for electing governors existed). Secondly, there is nothing to keep the Constitutional Court from passing a new decree canceling its 1996 verdict. Moreover, immediately after Putin's speech, many lawyers, including former head of the Constitutional Court Vladimir Tumanov, hurried to explain to the public that, for the sake of strengthening of national security, it was okay to sacrifice “the fullness of realization of some constitutional principles,” including the principle of separation of authority.
However, in the course of the reform, there will be other problems to be resolved by the Kremlin. First of all, the procedure for electing governor. The president's suggestion implies that the procedure is to be similar to the State Duma's approval of the Prime Minister's candidacy. But approval and election are different concepts. For approval, the president only has to introduce a single candidate, while an election implies providing options, in other words, alternative candidates. In this case, the right to propose somebody as a candidate must belong not only to the president, but to the deputies as well (as is the case currently with the election of representatives of regional parliaments in the Federation Council). In theory, this means that the candidate elected could be one the president did not propose, which could make the unity of state authority, for the sake of which the new reform is being initiated, rather doubtful.
Of course, it can be suggested that, for the sake of election alternatives, the president will propose several candidates. Such “pluralism of opinions in one head,” resembles a classic case of schizophrenia. And it is not clear yet how the Kremlin will withdraw governors elected by the new scheme. The strengthening of the power vertical demands that a governor who fails to fulfill his responsibilities can be fired by the president, and when a governor is elected, his term of office must be defined. After the term is set, it is likely a new head of state will have to work with the governors appointed by his predecessor. If the new president is not sure of the loyalty of the “old” governors, the effectiveness of the vertical of authority is again called into question.
Besides, if the transition to the new system of elections does not happen in a single stage, but according to expiration of terms of the governors (the option toward which the Kremlin is leaning), the heads of Federation subjects will be split in two categories according to how they were elected. The united “antiterrorist vertical” will appear only in March 2009, when the heads of all regions will be elected by the new scheme. Again, the effectiveness of an antiterrorist reform that will bring about the desired results only in four years looks questionable.
Details of the Procedure
The transition from the current mixed system of elections to the State Duma (where half of the deputies are elected by party lists, and half from single-mandate district) to election exclusively by party lists also has no relation to the fight against terrorism, but it fits well with plans to enforce “manageable democracy.” It is easier to control the election of few “right” parties than the election of loyal candidates in 225 single-mandate districts.
Apparently, the reform of elections to the State Duma will be based on Central Election Committee suggestions, written into a document. Based on them, the next elections to the State Duma can already be imagined. The party lists will be divided into 72 regional groups and their federal part will decrease from the present 18 candidates to three “to reinforce the regionalization of party lists.” The distribution of mandates within the party lists will also change. Now, candidates from the regional groups that receive the most votes get to the Duma. Under the new method, candidates from regions where a party receives a relative majority compared to its rivals will also be admitted to the Duma.
The idea of so-called open lists (when people vote not only for a party, but for a concrete candidate from its regional list), widely promoted by Central Election Committee chairman Aleksandr Veshnyakov, was refused by that committee. Instead of that, voters will choose between lists of parties and independent candidates, who also have a chance to become deputies, if they receive more votes than any party.
However, candidates promoted by parties will still have an advantage, since independent candidates must gather signatures from the electorate or submit an election deposit. The procedure for collecting signatures will also be toughened. Before, a 25-percent error rate was allowed, and now the maximum allowed number of invalid signatures will be lowered to five percent. And, “for the purpose of simplifying the verification of dates in signature lists,” the Election Committee has suggested that voters' signatures be notarized along with information on their collectors, which will complicate the progress of independent deputies toward the State Duma.
Conclusions and Prospects
There is no doubt that Putin's suggestions will attain force of law in the nearest future. Representatives of the United Russia Party, which has the constitutional majority in the State Duma, have already announced their support for the president's initiatives. Moreover, Putin's reforms will spread both in breadth and depth. Putin recommended to the regional leaders that they “influence the formation of the organs of local self-government.” Many governors have responded to that and suggested electing mayors on the same scheme as governors, which means that, eventually, the only politician who will be elected by the nation in Russia will be the president. And he will be the only person to answer for everything that happens in Russia – at least until another terrorist act forces him to shift the blame onto somebody else.
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What Is to Be Done Next?
The sudden extinction of the institution of electing governors and single-mandate deputies has brought a response from spin doctors, PR experts and other engineers of the people's votes.
Igor Bunin, director of the Public Relations Center
“The PR experts' field of work will be reduced to elections in the CIS, presidential and mayoral elections. Of 200 companies, 90 percent of them will not be necessary any more. The only ones left will be the super-professionals – us, for instance. But a new field may appear – the municipal counselor. Firms that have smart specialists can switch their activities to market, social and corporate research.”
Maksim Dianov, general director of the Russian Research Institute for Regional Problems
“We will continue working, since the market has not decreased at all. It only had its direction changed. Before, we worked around the voter, now we have to switch to the legislative committee, or to the president. We forget that the election campaign still remains, where we can still promote potential candidates. In general, for each kind of PR – black, grey or white – the only thing that will change is the approach to it, nothing else.”
Ilya Slutsky, president of Media Arts Group
“It looks like some people better retrain as building superintendents. The majority of people will find a way to make money. I think the number of promoters will be reduces, but that is good, because their status has been devaluated.”
Dmitry Oreshkin, director of the Merkator Group
“The crisis was unavoidable. Now the small fry will leave and the serious professionals will remain. Promoters will go into marketing, media, social research. Our group distanced itself from political marketing a long time ago; it was very unpleasant to deal with the customers and the climate was heavy.”
Aleksey Koshmarov, president of the Novocom Analytical Center
“We foresaw this development a long time ago, and elections take really about 20 percent of out work. They will be hard to substitute, though. We also have worked in the sphere of inter-elite communications, including business and political relations. The field of democratic procedures is being reduced, and the need for the coordinating interests remains. So this is the direction in which we will be working.”
Vyacheslav Nikonov, president of the Politika Fund
“I've never dealt with election campaigns in a single-mandate district. I did gubernatorial elections long ago, but that is not the main aspect of my work. Political consulting is a rather wide field, not limited to elections.”
World Practice
In countries with a federal state structure, the center has nothing to do with gubernatorial elections. This is implied by the very definition of a federation, that is, a state formed by federal units, which, as a rule, have their own constitutions, and legislative, executive and judicial powers. In most federations, governors are elected by popular vote. But there are exceptions.
In Austria, governors are elected by legislative assemblies of the lands, not on the nomination of the head of the federal government. In Belgium, governors of federation subjects are appointed by the king on nomination by the legislative authorities of the subjects. A similar system works in Australia, where governors of states formally represent the governor-general, and for that reason cannot be elected. The governor-general appoints them on recommendation of the state's prime minister. That seeming absence of democracy is compensated for by the fact that the governor has no real power. About the same is true for India, where the heads of states are appointed by the president on recommendation of the prime minister. A similar system works in Pakistan. In Nigeria, in the time of the military dictatorship, state governors were appointed by federal authorities, but that practice stop after power was transferred to the civilian government.
Nikolay Gulko
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 20, 2004
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