Experts on direct gubernatorial elections

On October 14th direct gubernatorial elections will be held in at least 2 regions of Russia. Will the reform be successful? Are direct gubernatorial elections essential for a federal state? VK asked experts to comment on the reform.Grigory Dobromelov, executive general of the Institute for Political ResearchProbably, I would express a thought right now which is not very popular nowadays neither among the experts nor among the public: the law is good despite everything. Despite everything, adopting an absolutely situational law on a situational occasion - it is clear that there has been no systematic desire to introduce gubernatorial elections, especially direct ones and so fast. It happened absolutely under the influence of events which we observed in December. Before that, certainly, similar projects and ideas were present in the administration of the president and the current government, but it was far from their actual implementation. Now a law was very quickly adopted. A law which, say, was more successful in its final form that in its initial form, in which it was introduced to the Duma. What are its irrefutable advantages? The first advantage of this law is that is has eliminated all the odd issues which existed in its first edition. For instance, the imperative character of communication between the president and candidates. In fact, the initial version of the bill produced opportunities to any candidate, any party to necessarily meet with the president in order to discuss possible participation in the elections. Thus, it was supposed to be an easy access to the president and he had no choice. This imperative character in the final version of the bill was eliminated. Secondly, of course people talk about different types of filters. First of all, the presidential filter in the final version of the law is not the filter itself. It is an opportunity to consult with the president. Though it is not very clear why was it done and what is the essence of this mechanism, this opportunity is provided and there is no filter, no binding nature to the prohibition of further participation in the elections of anybody. The second filter is the filter of municipalities. It is really important and serious, quite correctly introduced: it is necessary to collect from 5 to 10% votes of municipal deputies to nominate candidates in at least two thirds of municipalities. If we consider the law not as a situational toy aimed at solving specific political issues, then the filter is right. In theory, it is required and moreover it is provided by a number of laws in other countries. If we say that this law will not change for at least ten years, the existence of such a filter will eventually prompt the interest of parties in working with municipalities, municipal elections, and hence will lead to construction of a really coherent regional policy for the parties. Moreover, potentially in five, six or ten years this filter will create a serious problem for the government itself, if they lose the elections in the municipalities, as this is possible. We had regions where the communists won and where the leftist non-communist parties won. However, after losing the municipal elections, they will face a situation in which municipalities will block the candidates in power. The authorities might encounter the same problem as well. Therefore, theoretically, it is proper. To conclude about filters: for the current government in general, this law on the election of governors will be difficult and cause problems. It is like cigarettes. Which cigarettes are better to smoke: with or without filters? To smoke without a filter is very bad, but cigarettes with filter are no healthier. This law is the same for the authorities: with or without a filter, it is a problem for the authorities. The fact that this problem showed a great number of deputies who were hastily withdrawn prior to the adoption of the law... Thus it becomes clear that by introducing the filter the authorities almost sign up to the fact that they believe our society is not ready yet for direct elections of governors, and hence the authorities do not feel strong enough to introduce entirely democratic procedures in the community. Sergey Mikheyev, director general of the Center for Political ConjunctureRegarding the law and these initiatives, I am certainly not ready to agree with Larisa Alexandrovna that everything that people want is good. It is some sort of a utopia from the end of the nineteenth century: Narodnaya Volya, social democrats. As if the people possess some sort of sacred knowledge and everything that they ever want is good. If one has a look, in general people would like not to work and have a beautiful life. And what then? This is also good? People in their majority do not know very well what is going on around them. Thus, in my opinion elections per se are neither positive nor negative. The question is: what would the elections lead too? And as history shows, in different situations they can lead to very different consequences. Even free, rather democratic according to formal conditions, rather uncontrollable elections. They can lead to different consequences. Returning to the 1990s, I could tell you what the elections looked like in the 1990s. They were a struggle between groups for the division of regional resources. That is it. I am convinced that all the talk about political activity ongoing in regions at the moment, about the victory of the good over the bad and the triumph of good, the victory of good ideas over the bad - is a utopia for students. It is good to talk about these things in students' lecture halls. In fact, there will be a struggle for economic resources. Politics will shortly withdraw from regional elections, very fast. There would be an insignificant enthusiasm about it at the beginning. Then people who would try to make a career out of it will, I believe, very soon demonstrate that they are incapable and in the end everything will return to competition between groups to become favorites of the federal center - that is what is going to happen. Local influential groups will start to compete for the benevolence of the federal center in order to successfully move forward their candidates to become heads of regions. In general, regional elections have always been and will always be mostly de-politicized. They will largely be de-politicized. Because here in Moscow you can gather and start chanting: "No autocracy! Freedom for all!" But imagine gathering in Tomsk or somewhere in Omsk. Would you build your campaign on these slogans as well? It would be a fiasco! A total fiasco, because it would be about very concrete things. I have participated in dozens of electoral campaigns of governors and one-mandate deputies, when they still existed. It would be about very concrete issues: when, how and when someone solves a problem, eliminates a pit, builds a bridge and how and when someone will open, for instance, a kindergarden. That is it. People who would try to play on political emotions would most probably lose very quickly. It is easy to do on the Internet, it is interesting to do on squares in the capital, while in the regions, most probably, it would not last long. Thus, the struggle between groups for influence will be first of all based on finding solutions to defined community problems. In general, such a phenomenon as a direct candidate from the United Russia might disappear from regional elections. Very easily. Just disappear and that is it. And who in fact represents the interests of authorities, you would not even figure this out in a number of cases. Frankly speaking, it is happening already nowadays. People say: a candidate from the opposition has won. If you research the regional problematics, you would not understand who was a candidate from the opposition - the one who won or the one who lost. Moreover, some people would try now to use the image of opposition in order to, if there is such opportunity, score some points in this domain. By all of that I mean that the law is certainly not bad and I agree on this issue with Dobromelov. Yes, probably, it reflects certain aspirations of people, but in general, certainly we have to look in a more focused and cynical way at these issues, because regional elections are always a struggle for resources and interests. They have been this way, there are like that at the moment and they will remain like that in the future, I am absolutely convinced. Yevgeny Minchenko, head of the International Institute for Political ResearchThe authorities always tried to change the elections of governors when we still had them. The main aim of the authorities at that time was, on the one hand, to minimize the opportunities of the regional forces, and on the other hand to initiate a repartition of founded feudal empires, among which the most interesting ones financially were Moscow, Bashkyria, Tatarstan, Yakutia and a number of regions with almost permanent leaders, where there were large financial capitals, etc. In some places it was possible with the help of the electoral mechanism. For instance, Murtaza Rakhimov was threatened at the elections and peacefully handed Bashkyria over to the federal groups, although it actually did not save him from dismissal. Nevertheless, the introduction of the practice of appointment of governors, although people say that in fact it is entrusting someone with powers, that there is no appointments, in fact they are appointed... Although the reason behind it was the war against terrorism, clearly, nothing has been done in this direction. Nevertheless, in general it became a mechanism for redirecting financial flows towards large federal business groups. If we look at the recently-appointed governors, we see that majority of them are from corporations. Thus, certain corporations take control over one or another region. In fact, something similar was at the elections. When people talk about the "outrageous 90s", there has been no "outrageous 90s". Compared with what is currently happening at the elections, the 90s are just harmless games. You remember how we were all threatened by Alexey Koshmarov: black technologies, registration of dopplegangers, nightmares, black PR, negative campaigns. The current trivial rewriting of protocols from polling stations is, in my opinion, a totally different story. I believe that the key technology nowadays would be in attracting as many people as possible to your side when there are problems with already-collected signatures or with collecting signatures for some reason. Unfortunately, this would stimulate the opposition candidates to be ready for protest actions in advance, since they are the only means of influencing the authorities. At the same time, the authorities are creating problems for themselves. What problems? First of all, the technology at the end of the 90s often used and the beginning of the 2000s of spoiler candidates is very complicated at the moment. Before that there would be one candidate represented as entirely positive and 1 or 2 candidates who would distribute negative information about their rivals, the so-called "initiators". Now it would be very difficult to register such initiators, or one would have to make a deal with representatives of local parties, the first choice would probably be the Labour-Democratic Party of Russia. This is the first problem. The second issue which will become a problem next year already is the single day for voting. If all elections will be held in September all across the country, there would be little content in the elections. What is the basis of power of the ruling party in regional elections and why were two days of elections introduced? Due to three elements: administrative resources, popular local figures and the baton of federal TV channels. The third resource, the baton of federal TV channels, was practically eliminated by the authorities themselves because at the end of summer and beginning of autumn people watch minimum television. The authorities themselves hinder the development of a single agenda across the country. But as far as I understand this was not a real concern. Moreover, there is a risk that in case of a decrease in popularity of the ruling party, and I believe that it is going to decrease due to a number of unpopular reforms, then there would be a risk that the elections will be based on the principle not for someone but against someone, against any candidate of United Russia. In this regard, especially taking into consideration the difficulties linked with registering spoiler candidates, the authorities might simply fall into their own trap in September 2013.