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05.12.07
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Avoiding The Nationalist Vote
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By Matt Siegel
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Where have the Supporters of Groups like the Once-Popular Rodina Gone?
On the eve of the Moscow City Duma elections in 2005, the ultra-nationalist Rodina coalition seemed poised to grab as much as 25 percent of the vote, but the wave of xenophobia they attempted to ride into power came crashing down around them. After a now infamous advertisement featuring dark-skinned immigrants extolled Muscovites to “take out the trash,” the Kremlin disqualified them from the race.
Two short years later, the once alluring draw of ethnic nationalism has all but disappeared from the contemporary political stage, swept aside, some say, in the Kremlin’s relentless drive to consolidate its hold over public discourse. And while it is impossible to say with any real accuracy exactly how those attracted by Rodina-style nationalism voted in Sunday’s national elections, analysts and activists alike agree that their absence from electoral politics in no way indicates the demise of the movement. In the long run, some believe it may contribute to their further radicalization.
“[Ultra-nationalists] knew in advance that they wouldn’t be allowed to be in the State Duma, and real radical groups aren’t oriented towards participation in the State Duma,” said Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the Moscow-based Sova Center, an NGO that researches nationalism and xenophobia. “But to look further … if some crisis happens in the Kremlin, which is, I would say, unavoidable if they build this purely vertical system, it means that all political forces, not only nationalists … will act outside the parliament. But we don’t know when and in what form it will happen.”
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has been plagued by rising ethnic violence. According to Sova’s research, the number of violent attacks committed on the basis of ethnicity has risen by approximately 25 percent in each of the last seven years. A recent report detailed 36 attacks in Moscow this summer alone, including two deaths. Whether it’s because it truly fears them or just because it doesn’t see them as useful, the Kremlin has plotted a course to steer clear of these groups, despite their popularity.
“Except for two very unpleasant developments, such as the anti-Georgian campaign and Kondopoga [where the deaths of two ethnic Russians led to race riots in summer 2006], when the Kremlin resorted to terms such as ‘native/not native,’ the Kremlin has avoided encouraging ethnic nationalism,” said Masha Lipman, a political analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Moscow.
One point of agreement among analysts is that the Kremlin’s decision to marginalize ultra-nationalists lacks altruism as its motivating factor. The common belief is that the dramatic decline in ultra-nationalist rhetoric during this election cycle is due not to a genuine concern for ethnic relations, but rather to a cynical calculation of their danger as an opposition group.
But while the statistics may seem to suggest that the Russian electorate is ripe for a new nationalist party to fill the gap left by Rodina, Lipman stresses the distinction between the type of passive nationalism displayed by the population at large and the focused, violent nationalism of the fringe groups on the far right.
“People do not sympathize with ethnic killings, this is for sure. Not that they are outraged and demand that the government act to stop this violence, but they certainly don’t sympathize,” she said.
In her estimation, the Kremlin replaced ethnic nationalism with rising anti-Western rhetoric amidst concerns about unleashing the potentially uncontrollable genie of far right sentiment after the Rodina debacle.
“I think the Kremlin has hardened its nationalist rhetoric, in the English sense of the word, and maybe this is a way to actually deter the attention from ethnic nationalism somewhat, like channel the negative sentiments towards the US and the West instead of whoever doesn’t look right,” she said.
The prevailing view seems to be that in the absence of a strong radical voice in the elections, the vast majority of radical nationalists who would have voted for a Rodina-type party simply didn’t bother to vote at all. Those that did were probably split evenly between the Communists, the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and even Putin’s United Russia.
The Patriots of Russia, perhaps the most clearly xenophobic opposition party to qualify for the vote, received only 0.9 percent of the total, far below the 7 percent necessary to win seats in the State Duma.
Alexander Belov, the outspoken leader of the tiny but vocal Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI), directed the members of his group not to vote as an act of protest.
Using the broadly critical language currently popular among critics of Putin’s regime across the political spectrum, Belov lamented the disenfranchisement not only of those on the far right, but the center and left as well.
“A considerable range of various others are suffering from this, too, including democrats. Citizens ought to engage in political struggle. The process of registering political parties should become easier, the barrier must be brought down, parties must have more access to TV and mass media, as well as get support from other national groups, as well as international groups,” he said, before adding an ominous coda: “Pressure must be applied to achieve any results.”
In the short term, analysts doubt that the sense of disenfranchisement surrounding the nationalist movement will have much of an impact on the state of affairs in the country. In the long-term, however, they fear the impact that this growing, angry and motivated group will have if they feel as though they have no legitimate means of expressing their political viewpoint.
In anticipation of possible discontent at their marginalization during the elections, the Kremlin appears to have installed what amount to a series of safety valves to let off the steam building on the far right. Beyond the heightening of anti-Western rhetoric, the Kremlin allowed a march by Belov’s group in Moscow on Nov. 4, a public holiday known as the Day of Unity and Reconciliation, where the numerous racist icons flew in clear violation of Russia’s hate speech laws.
Another reliable valve the Kremlin continues to find effective is Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s nominally nationalist LDPR. Despite obviously toeing the Kremlin line, the LDPR captured 40 seats in Sunday’s election on a vaguely nationalist platform. Lipman however, doesn’t think that hard-core nationalists will be fooled.
“I don’t think that skinheads would come to the polls because Zhirinovsky is running,” she said, “especially because Zhirinovsky looks like their grandfather.”
Because of the peculiarities of the Russian electoral system, it will be some time before it is known whether even those members of the LDPR list who ran and won on what would be considered an ultra-nationalist platform – Ivan Musatov in Irkutsk, for example – will actually become Duma deputies. There is a perception that the Kremlin, in the interest of maintaining the country’s image, may bar them from behind the scenes.
In the end though, while some experts like Verkhovsky caution against creating a large block of disenfranchised extremists, Lipman believes that a much greater force than nationalism will always be the dominant force in Russian politics: apathy.
“People are not prone to political organization in this country,” said Lipman. “I don’t think they’re any more disenfranchised than they were before.” |
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