In response to the Russian invasion of Georgia, the EU held its first emergency summit since the outbreak of the Iraq war. It quickly postponed meetings on the partnership agreement with Russia until the Kremlin moved its troops back to pre-August 7 positions. The EU statement, additionally weakened by a proud Silvio Berlusconi, included the phrase “We expect Russia to behave in a responsible manner, honoring all its commitments,” in addition to the evergreens “gravely concerned” and “strongly condemn.” How Putin and his billionaire and KGB buddies must have laughed at such quaint language.
On May 7, Dmitry Medvedev was sworn in as the president of Russia, behind closed doors. Putin was asked if he would, following tradition, hang a portrait of the new president on the wall of his office. Putin balked, but the joke going around had it that he would indeed have one: a portrait of Medvedev in the president’s office looking at a portrait of Putin. According to the Russian constitution, Medvedev was now the one in charge. But as there was never any actual evidence of his independence and authority, it was safe to assume that Medvedev still needed Putin’s permission to use the Kremlin lavatory. The real “smooth transition of power,” in the ironically perfect phrase of German chancellor Angela Merkel, was its move with Putin from the presidency to the prime ministry.
I’ve made well over a thousand international media appearances in the last ten years, nearly all of them to discuss Russia and Putin. Often a show’s producers will ask you in advance what title you prefer to be called on the air and what you’d like to appear next to your name on TV. Sometimes they do not ask. I have a long and complicated resume, so I’m used to hearing all sorts of things in these situations. It’s similar with the introductions I receive at my business and political lecture events. They are always kind and usually flattering, but often they contain all sorts of spurious information about me gleaned from a quick Google search. I often have to follow up with a quick set of corrections and joke that I’m always interested in these introductions because I learn so many new things!
“Garry Kasparov, Russian human rights activist and former world chess champion” shouldn’t be too hard, no? I am also chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation and a senior visiting fellow at the Oxford Martin School, where I regularly have lectures and seminars. I’m also very proud to be the chairman of the Kasparov Chess Foundation, a global education nonprofit, and of being a modestly popular author and speaker. But that is all too long to put on TV.
The one title I truly dislike is one I hear quite often: “Garry Kasparov, former Russian presidential candidate.” This is not only inaccurate, but it is misleading in a damaging way. Yes, the Other Russia and other opposition groups held internal primaries in order to put forward candidates in 2008 and I was a participant. Yes, we had online and in-person voting to select candidates and I was one of the winners. Yes, several of us attempted to register to become candidates and I was one of them. But was I really a candidate for president?
When people from democratic countries talk to me about polls, platforms, campaigns, and other normal elements of elections in a free country, I have to stop them short. None of those things ever really existed in Russia—not in 2008 and even less so now. In Russia the opposition isn’t trying to win elections; we’re trying to have elections. We had started out optimistically in 2004, hoping that Putin’s departure might open the door to a contested election. By 2007, after the crackdowns on the Marches of Dissent and our other activities grew worse and worse, we realized there was little hope of that. Until Putin and Medvedev made their little announcement on December 10 we weren’t sure exactly how the ax was going to fall, or when, but we knew it was very sharp and right over our heads.
Putin anointed Medvedev with what a Mexican friend called “el dedazo,” the endowing touch of a finger akin to the god of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel giving life to Adam. At that point the result of the election was no longer in question. The system could never allow anyone so designated to do anything other than win by a huge margin. It was also very clear that the Kremlin did not want the presidential ballot to be cluttered with too many names. The campaigns of the opposition candidates became a strange game of forcing the authorities to figure out different ways to disqualify us.
There was no shortage of hoops to jump through and the Central Election Commission (CEC), run by Putin’s henchman Vladimir Churov, was dedicated to making sure nobody but the approved candidates made it. The main obstacle was practically insurmountable on its face. An independent candidate had to collect 2 million signatures in just five weeks, and only 40,000 could be from a single region. So in Moscow, no matter how many you got, only 40,000 counted. So you needed signatures from fifty regions, minimum. Then, two weeks out of the five-week window was a general holiday. Lastly, when you came up with the signatures you could submit only 2.2 million, no more, and if 10 percent were disqualified for any reason you were out of the game.
Even to reach that stage would also turn out to be difficult. Each candidate was required to hold a nominating convention with at least five hundred supporters under one roof to sign a declaration with a representative of the Ministry of Justice there to observe in person. But as during my travels around the country, it turned out no venues in Moscow were willing to rent me a hall for this purpose. Well, that’s not completely true, since we did sign a contract for a hall for December 13 and even paid our fee up front. But two days before, we were informed that “for technical reasons the hall is not available on that date.” Of course on December 14 the very same hall was ready and waiting to host a nominating convention for the Kremlin’s new stooge candidate, Bogdanov.
And so I did not even get as far as being nominated by the deadline in order to have the pleasure shared by a few other opposition figures in having their paperwork dismissed by Mr. Churov. Former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov pushed the hardest, appealing to the supreme court after the CEC decided that too many of his nominating petition’s signatures were forged. Of course his appeal was denied.
That left the usual suspects on the ballot once again: the token nationalist nutcase, Zhirinovsky; the token Communist caveman, Zyuganov; and Putin, represented by his shadow, Medvedev. For a little flavor they also let Andrei Bogdanov appear on the ballot as a faux liberal alternative. He was even permitted to receive 1.8 percent of the votes before disappearing whence he came.
The Other Russia and other opposition organizations had held internal primaries in an attempt to foster and share a real democratic experience in a country that had very little of it. Volunteers set up polling places wherever they could, in gymnasiums, pubs, and homes, and often they had to do it in a hurry before police came to shut them down and con fiscate their equipment. We had policy statements, platform arguments, even online and offline debates. All these things existed completely outside of the official political processes at any level.
Our other goal was to expose the official elections for the mockery they were as clearly and loudly as possible. Enough of Western observers and foreign ministries lamely regretting “reported irregularities” and “media bias” in Russian elections. Putin had become a dictator, full stop, and it was time to say it. He wasn’t a president or a prime minister or anything else that connoted legitimacy or democracy. We knew this wouldn’t be reported by Russian media or pointed out by Russian politicians.