NYT editorial: Exit, Russian Democracy
For a leader who has everything — control of the military, the government, the voting process and the media — President Vladimir Putin of Russia looks increasingly desperate and threatened ahead of parliamentary elections on Sunday. Polls suggest his United Russia party will win the balloting overwhelmingly, giving him leverage to continue wielding power in some form. But his greedy grab for victory while quashing credible political opposition demonstrates that this is no free and fair election and Russia is no democracy.
Last weekend, two rallies by an anti-Putin coalition protesting the unfairness of the election were broken up by truncheon-wielding riot police. The former chess champion Garry Kasparov, a coalition leader and potential presidential candidate, was sentenced to five days in jail for organizing one demonstration. Boris Nemtsov, another presidential candidate and a former deputy prime minister, was also detained, as were dozens of other pro-democracy activists.
No one expected a smooth trajectory from the seven decades of Soviet dictatorship to Jeffersonian democracy, but the years under Mr. Putin have been a whipsaw. Buoyed by high oil revenues and a rising economy, he is credited with restoring national pride and stability. But Mr. Putin has so emasculated the democratic institutions that evolved in the 1990s that it is apparent he has little confidence in his people. The Kremlin controls the political process, deciding who can run for office and who gets access to national television coverage.
Mr. Putin has accused the United States of persuading international monitors to withdraw from observing Russia’s elections and thus undermining them. But it is he who has taken the legitimacy out of the election process. Without changes, that is only going to get worse when Russia holds its 2008 presidential elections.
Washington’s ties with Russia — bungled by President Bush and given short shrift so far in America’s presidential debates — deserve more attention. The United States, Europe and Japan prematurely brought Russia into the elite group of leading industrialized nations by arguing that it would encourage Moscow on a democratic path. Now they must stand together as democracies and make clear that Russia’s reversion to its autocratic past is unacceptable.
Last weekend, two rallies by an anti-Putin coalition protesting the unfairness of the election were broken up by truncheon-wielding riot police. The former chess champion Garry Kasparov, a coalition leader and potential presidential candidate, was sentenced to five days in jail for organizing one demonstration. Boris Nemtsov, another presidential candidate and a former deputy prime minister, was also detained, as were dozens of other pro-democracy activists.
No one expected a smooth trajectory from the seven decades of Soviet dictatorship to Jeffersonian democracy, but the years under Mr. Putin have been a whipsaw. Buoyed by high oil revenues and a rising economy, he is credited with restoring national pride and stability. But Mr. Putin has so emasculated the democratic institutions that evolved in the 1990s that it is apparent he has little confidence in his people. The Kremlin controls the political process, deciding who can run for office and who gets access to national television coverage.
Mr. Putin has accused the United States of persuading international monitors to withdraw from observing Russia’s elections and thus undermining them. But it is he who has taken the legitimacy out of the election process. Without changes, that is only going to get worse when Russia holds its 2008 presidential elections.
Washington’s ties with Russia — bungled by President Bush and given short shrift so far in America’s presidential debates — deserve more attention. The United States, Europe and Japan prematurely brought Russia into the elite group of leading industrialized nations by arguing that it would encourage Moscow on a democratic path. Now they must stand together as democracies and make clear that Russia’s reversion to its autocratic past is unacceptable.
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