COMMENTARY
by Gordon Hahn
The liberalization being carried out by Russia’s ruling tandem and most closely associated with President Dmitrii Medvdev in Russian foreign and domestic political and economic policy continues. Judicial, legal, police, penitentiary, anti-corruption and economic reforms continue to be pressed and gradually ratcheted up as well. To be sure, there are limits to the reforms already undertaken, but just because some things remain the same does not mean nothing has changed. Indeed, Medvedev is now taking on Russia’s ossified political system in the most serious way since his arrival to the presidency.
Medvedev’s previous practice of carrying out marginal political reforms is a thing of the past; he has crossed the threshold of more significant reforms. Earlier, several marginal reforms made it easier for opposition parties to compete compared with the more tilted playing field crated during the president of Premier Vladimir Putin. In April President Medvedev signed into law measures allowing political parties to field candidates in regional and municipal elections even if those parties have no offices of branches in those regions (Natalya Krainova, “Kremlin Eases Vote Rules for Opposition,” Moscow Times, 8 April 2011).
But in June Medvedev moved to roll back a significant counter-reform of the Vladimir Putin’s presidency when he abruptly announced his intention and immediately submitted to tne Duma the next day a bill that will lower the percentage of votes needed for parties to receive a proportional number of seats in the State Duma from 7 to 5 percent barrier for the 2016 Duma elections. Medvedev proposed that the barrier could be lowered further – from 5 percent to 3 percent – without indicating whether this would happen before or after the 2016 Duma elections.
When Putin raised the threshold from 5 to 7 percent in 2004 for the 2007 Duma elections most Western and Russian observers criticized the move as deleterious for democratization and aimed at excluding democratic parties from the Duma. The same critics who charged that Putin’s move was a step backward for democracy then cannot in good conscience claim now that the repeal of this policy is not a step towards democracy. Moreover, this step is a signal of Medvedev’s intent to run, as it leaves his stamp on the year 2016 which would be a little over hapf way through his second term should he choose to run and win the presidential vote next year.
Critics argue that even Medvedev’s return to the 5 percent barrier is not enough since the process of registering political parties is prohibitive, biased, and designed to prevent democratic and other parties potentially threatening to the ruling elite’s continued rule. But Medvedev announced in an interview with Moskovskie novosti, the revived flagship paper of the perestroika era reforms, that “the existing system of registering parties will be gradually simplified” (“’Nel’syza nakanune vyborov vse vzyat’ peretryasti’ – Beseda Dmitriya Medvedeva s zhurnalistami ‘Moskovskikh novostei’,” Moskovskie novosti, 24 June 2011). Medvedev reiterated this at a meeting with the Right Cause Party’s new head, Mikhail Prokhorov, three days later: “We need to look now at how to make our system the power system, and the electoral system less bureaucratic, freer, and less centralised at the national level and in the regions” (“Vstecha s liderom partii ‘Pravoe delo’ Mikhailom Prokhorovym,” Kremlin.ru, 27 June 2011). Medvedev’s comments followed a recent statement by his close ally, Justice Minister Aleksandr Konovalov who noted in an interview days earlier that it would be better to eliminate the registration process altogether and simply require parties and all “non-commercial organizations” simply to inform the Justice Ministry of their creation (Natalya Krainova, “Minister: Ease Rules For Parties,” Moscow Times, 21 June 2011). In a July 12th meeting with the leaders of political parties Medvedev hinted that the bill he sent to the Duma for lowering the barrier for parties to enter the Duma to 5 percent would be followed by more legislation intended to reform the electoral system by noting: “most probably, my recommendations in this field will not be limited to this move only," Medvedev told the politicians.” Specifically, he mentioned switching to party notification rather than registration and decentralization of powers and budget revenues from the federal to the regional and local levels, reiterating a proposal he issued at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last month (Liliya Biryukova, “Vyiti iz zastoya,” Vedomosti, 13 July 2011; Natalya Krainova, “President Pledges to Liberalize Politics,” Moscow Times, 13 July 2011; “Medvedev promises more changes in electoral law,” Russia Today, 12 July 2011).
In addition, Medvedev seemed to give his sign of approval of Prokhorov’s effort to revive the Rught Cause Party and thus address the perennial weakness of the right-wing of Russia’s party spectrum; a problem Medvedev has repreatedly decried. Whether this is an effort to bring a democratic party into the Duma or one meant simply to supplant the renegade Just Russia Party led by maverick leader Sergei Mironov and the democratic opposition National Freedom Party (NFP) led by former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, Vladimir Ryzhkov, and Boris Nemtsov remains unclear. When the latter party’s registration was rejected by the Justice Ministry because of a series of technicalities, Medvedev stepped in, effectively calling on the party to resubmit its registration request after it corrected its papers, and his close associate Igor Jurgens then announced in Brussels that he regarded the NFP’s leaders as his friends and that Medvedev supported the party’s registration (“Partiya narodnoi svobody mozhet byt’ zaregitrirovana, esli yeyo sozdateli pravil’no oformyat dokumenty", Ekho Moskvy, 23 June 2011, and
Georgi Gotev, “'Modern' Medvedev portrayed in Brussels,” Euractiv.com, 30 June 2011).
In a move related to the electoral system as well as freedom of association, Medvedev recently backed amendments to Article 144 of the Criminal Code being proposed by the Liberal Democratic Party that would introduce criminal responsibility for those who discriminate against workers for supporting one or another political party. This would potentially impinge on the United Russia’s near political monopoly, since federal, regional and even municipal government department heads and state-run educational institutions and business enterprise directors often pressure employees to vote for the Kremlin-backed party (“Vstrecha s molodymi parlamentariyami,” Kremlin.ru, 13 May 2011).
To the extent one defines Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika era reforms in terms of his radical transformation of the Soviet Union’s political system, then what we are now witnessing is the beginning of the evolution of Medvedev’s thaw into Perestroika 2.0 – the capstone of which will be a very gradual introduction of political liberalization and democratization to be implemented during Medvedev’s likely second term.
Observers in the mass media and elsewhere who deny there is a thaw, liberalization or new perestroika have a problem. They cannot have it both ways; they cannot say that Putin’s introduction of more restrictive election and party registration rules and more centralized government constituted backsliding from democracy and the restoration of autocracy and simultaneously construe Medvedev’s dismantling of Putin’s system as insignificant or non-existent reform. At least, they cannot do so without further undermining their own credibility; hence, they suppress information about the ongoing reforms.
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