Victims of a managed democracy? Explaining the electoral decline of the Yabloko party

Demokratizatsiya

Volumn 15, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 209-229

  White, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Elections; Managed democracy; Opposition; Political parties; Russian politics; Yabloko

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRACY; ELECTION; ELECTORAL SYSTEM; PARTY POLITICS;

EURASIA; RUSSIAN FEDERATION;

EID: 34547138150     PISSN: 10746846     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.15.2.209-229     Document Type: Article

References (98)

1. Grigory Yavlinsky, "Strana okhodit i nichego nel'zya podelat'," Moskovskii komsomolets, January 30, 2004.
2. "Kommentarii. Chelovek Nedeli: Demiurg," Vedomosti, December 15, 2003.
3. Yabloko received 7.86 percent of the party list vote in 1993, 6.89 percent in 1995, 5.93 percent in 1999, and 4.32 percent in 2003.
4. Robert Dahl, Political Opposition in Western Democracies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), xv.
5. A programmatic party is one that has a distinct, consistent, and coherent programmatic and ideological agenda and clearly incorporates such ideological and programmatic appeals in its electoral campaigns. See Richard Gunther and Larry Diamond, "Species of Political Parties: A New Typology," Party Politics 9, no. 2 (2003): 187.
6. David White, The Russian Democratic Party Yabloko: Opposition in a Managed Democracy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006). Henry Hale also identifies organizational failings and a lack of coherent electoral strategy as factors contributing to Yabloko's electoral decline: Henry Hale, "Yabloko and the Challenge of Building a Liberal Party in Russia," Europe-Asia Studies 56, no. 7 (2004): 993-1020.
7. For an analysis of the divisions between Russia's liberals see David White, "Going Their Own Way: The Yabloko Party's Opposition to Unification," Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 21, no. 4 (2005): 462-86.
8. The liberal economist Yevgeny Yasin argued that had the two parties competed on a single democratic ticket they would have gained at least 8 percent of the vote. Conflict in the democratic camp deterred liberal supporters from voting. Yevgeny Yasin, "Demokratiya s chistogo lista," Rossiiskaya gazeta, December 12, 2003. One cannot ignore, however, that deep ideological divisions (Yabloko's social liberalism as opposed to the economic liberalism of SPS) lie at the heart of the schism. See White, "Going Their Own Way," 465-67.
9. Prior to reorganizing in 2001, Yabloko's notoriously labyrinthine membership system, overseen by Deputy Chairman Vyacheslav Igrunov, seemed designed as much to prevent people from joining the party as encouraging new recruits. To join the party, prospective members were required to serve a six to twelve month probationary period as a "candidate member" before being considered for full membership by either the member's regional branch or Yabloko's Central Committee. During this period the probationary member was expected to prove himself/ herself through participation in the association's activities.
10. Sergei Ivanenko, Yabloko deputy chairman and State Duma deputy, interview with author, Moscow, March 12, 2002. Ivanenko's comments were by no means an isolated view. Many Yabloko members interviewed by the author during 2001-02 expressed similar opinions.
11. For more details on the 1995, 1999, and 2003 parliamentary election campaigns see White, The Russian Democratic Party Yabloko, 125-35.
12. For Yabloko's muddled policies on Chechnya in 1999 see Hale, "Yabloko and the Challenge of Building a Liberal Party in Russia," 1009-14.
13. David Collier and Steven Levitsky, "Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research," World Politics 49 (April 1997): 445. Collier and Levitskry argue that scholars should avoid "definitional gerrymandering" in the sense of introducing a new definition every time they encounter a somewhat anomalous case.
14. Harley Balzer, "Managed Pluralism: Vladimir Putin's Emerging Regime," Post-Soviet Affairs 19, no. 3 (2003): 194.
15. Sergei Markov, "The Future of Managed Democracy," Moscow Times, January 27, 2004.
16. Timothy J. Colton and Michael McFaul, Popular Choice and Managed Democracy: The Russian Elections of 1999 and 2000 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2003).
17. Grigory Yavlinsky, "Yabloko Rejects Putin's Managed Democracy," St. Petersburg Times, January 25, 2002.
18. Richard Sakwa, Putin: Russia's Choice (London: Routledge, 2004), 123.
19. Richard Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society, 3rd edition (London: Routledge, 2002), 157.
20. Michael McFaul, "Russia's 1996 Presidential Elections," Post-Soviet Affairs 12, no. 4 (1996): 344.
21. Vsevolod Vilchek, "TV after Elections: Illusory Peace," Moscow News, July 18, 1996. The share of television air time (NTV, ORT, and RTR) up to the first round was as follows: Yeltsin 53 percent, Zyuganov 18 percent, Lebed 7 percent, Yavlinsky 6 percent, Zhirinovsky 5 percent, and others 11 percent. Data compiled by European Mass Media Institute.
22. This was due in no small part to the appointment of the head of NTV, Igor Malashenko, to lead Yeltsin's reelection campaign.
23. Ellen Mickiewicz, Changing Channels: Television and the Struggle for Power in Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 170.
24. Lebed was one of the leaders of the Congress of Russian Communities bloc (KRO), which gained a 4.3 percent share of the party list vote in the 1995 Duma elections. Federov was the leader of the left-democratic Workers' Self-Government Party.
25. Vladimir Gel'man, "Dilemmy demokraticheskoi oppozitsii: G. Yavlinskii, 'Yabloko' i prezidentskie vybory," Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya 10 (1997): 23.
26. Marina Shakina, "'Tret'ya sila' ne sostoyalas," Nezavisinaya gazeta, May 13, 1996.
27. Asked if he would accept the offer of a top governmental post in return for an electoral alliance with Yeltsin, Yavlinsky replied that the president knew his terms - an end to the war in Chechnya, a guarantee of continued reform in terms of de-monopolization, privatization, regional reform, and macro-economic stabilization. Such terms, Yavlinsky believed, were unlikely to be met. Olga Gorshunova, "Gaidar porval s proshlym," Nezavisimaya gazeta, January 24, 1996. Yavlinsky later prepared a document for Yeltsin, setting out the conditions under which a compromise between the two would be possible. In effect, the document was Yavlinsky's own presidential program. Yavlinsky also demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets, Defense Minister Pavel Grachev, and the president's chief of staff Nikolai Yegerov.
28. Stepan Kiselev, "Usloviya Yavlinskogo izvestnyi. Reaktsii prezidenta poka net," Izvestiya, May 18, 1996.
29. It was ironic that Chubais had been given full responsibility for running Yeltsin's campaign. Chubais had been dismissed from his post as first deputy prime minister in January 1996 largely as a scapegoat for the nonpayment of back wages to government workers and also to appease Yeltsin's hard line advisors. Sergei Filatov, Yeltsin's chief of staff, and another reformist sacked in January was also brought back to run the president's campaign.
30. Oleg Savel'ev, "Posledni predvyborny opros VTsIOM: El'tsin-Zyuganov: 36-24," Segodnya, June 13, 1996.
31. Richard Sakwa, "Russia's 'Permanent' (Uninterrupted) Elections of 1999-2000," Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 16, no. 3 (2000): 93.
32. A report by the European Institute for the Media found that the state broadcasters ORT and RTR were heavily biased in favor of the pro-government Unity party. No commercial broadcasters provided impartial reporting. TV Center supported Fatherland-All Russia as did NTV although the latter channel was found to have the most balanced coverage of all major TV stations. European Institute for the Media Final Report on Monitoring of the Media Coverage of the Parliamentary Elections in Russia in December 1999. (Düsseldorf: EIM, 2000) http://www.eim.org/MaDP.htm (accessed January 24, 2000).
33. Sakwa, "Russia's 'Permanent' (Uninterrupted) Elections," 93.
34. European Institute for the Media Final Report on Monitoring of the Media Coverage of the Parliamentary Elections in Russia in December 1999.
35. "Prichina nevysokogo rezul'tata 'Yabloko' - neravnye usloviya bor'by - Grigory Yavlinsky," Yabloko press release, December 20, 1999, http://www.yabloko.ru/Press/1999/9912202.html (accessed January 24, 2000).
36. "Nyneshnie vybory v Gosdumu nel'zya schitat' demokraticheskimi - Vladimir Lukin," Yabloko press release, December 20, 1999, http://www.yabloko.ru/Press/1999/9912205.html (accessed January 24, 2000).
37. Yulia Zaitseva and Evgeny Savin, "Proraby predvybornykh blokov," Izvestiya Media (supplement to Izvestiya), November 29, 1999.
38. European Institute for the Media Final Report on Monitoring of the Media Coverage of the Parliamentary Elections in Russia in December 1999.
39. Evgeniya Dillendorf, Yabloko press secretary, interview with author, Moscow, April 19, 2001.
40. Laura Belin, "Rivals Charge Yavlinskii Getting Preferential Treatment," RFE/RL Russian Election Report, March 17, 2000, http://www.rferl.org/elections/russia00report/2000/03/03170300.html (accessed March 30, 2000).
41. According to Yavlinsky, the video warned about "the danger posed to the country in the event of the development of a totalitarian regime." In a letter to the head of the Central Electoral Commission, Aleksandr Veshnyakov, Yavlinsky argued that the refusal to broadcast the video clip was a "manifestation of censorship" and a violation of his right to publicize his campaign. ORT's director for administrative and legal issues stated that "the commercial associates the Russian electorate with prisoners but this group represents just a fraction of the voters" and that "a phrase [in the commercial] about law-enforcement servicemen falls under the Criminal Code article relating to disrespect for state authorities," Yabloko press release, March 19, 2000, http://www.yabloko.ru/Press/2000/000319.html (accessed March 30, 2000).
42. Sarah Karush, "Yavlinsky Comes Under Fire from Kremlin," Moscow Times, March 24, 2000.
43. For a comprehensive analysis of negative reporting of Yavlinsky on the ORT channel in the final days of the campaign see, Laura Belin, "ORT Launches Wide-Ranging Attack on Yavlinsky," RFE/RL Russian Election Report, March 24, 2000, http://www.rferl.org/elections/russia00report/ 2000/03/04-240300.html (accessed March 30, 2000).
44. For a report into the use of homophobia in the anti-Yavlinsky campaign see Gay.ru, "Gays and the Russian Election," http://www.gay.ru/ english/community/politics/election.htm (accessed June 26, 2003).
45. Representatives of the Ebert Foundation and the Freidrich Naumann Foundation both refuted allegations that they funded Yavlinsky's campaign. See Yabloko press release, March 24, 2000, http://www.yabloko.ru/Press/2000/0003243. html (accessed March 30, 2000).
46. Denis Babichenko, "Ne s'edim - tak ponadkysyvaem," Segodnya, March 23, 2000.
47. Yavlinsky's ratings varied between 3 percent and 5 percent from January to June 2000. VTsIOM surveys in Richard Rose and Neil Munro, Elections without Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 168.
48. "Izbiratel'nyi shtab Grigory Yavlinskogo o potreboval rassledovaniya intsidenta v Noginske," Yabloko press release, March 23, 2000, http://www.yabloko.ru/Press/2000/000323.html (accessed March 30, 2000). Andrei Sharomov, former chief of the Yabloko Youth organization in Moscow, confirmed that the Yabloko Youth Union was not associated with the party in any way and was essentially a spoiling operation designed to take votes away from Yavlinsky. Interview with author, Moscow, May 17, 2001.
49. Belin, "ORT Launches Wide-Ranging Attack." This explanation is further supported by the fact that the private network, TV-6, also distanced itself from Yavlinsky in the final week of the campaign, scrapping plans for the showing of a documentary film of the Yabloko leader. Boris Berezovsky was the most influential shareholder at both stations, but stood to lose control over ORT if its broadcasting license was revoked.
50. After agreeing to sign a deal selling his controlling stake in Media-Most to Gazprom in return from his freedom, Gusinsky fled the country. Gusinsky later claimed that the deal had been signed under duress.
51. The party's connection with Yukos was not a new development. Yavlinsky readily admitted that Khodorkovsky had been "helping" the party since 1993, although Media-Most remained the primary sponsor. Yukos only began to support the party "substantially" beginning in April 2002. Syuzanna Farizova, "My nichem ne otlichaemsya ot Ermitazha," Kommersant-Vlast', August 25, 2003.
52. Valery Vyzhutovich, "Tycoon Puts His Cards on the Table," Moscow News, April 16, 2003. As the author of the article pointed out, Veshnaykov was being optimistic. Under the Law on Political Parties, election funds may not exceed 250 million rubles (approximately $8 million). It was estimated, however, that YeR's election budget could reach three hundred million dollars while Yabloko, SPS, and the KPRF would operate their campaigns on $30 to $40 million each.
53. Yana Serova, "Navstrechu vyboram. Duma bogatykh," Novaya gazeta, November 24, 2003. Konstantin Kagalovsky (a Yukos shareholder, former board member and head of the Yukos-founded Open Economics Institute), Galina Antonova (head of strategic planning at Yukos), and Aleksandr Osovtsov (project director of Yukos's Open Russia Foundation) were prominently placed at 11th, 12th, and 13th places, respectively, on the Yabloko party list. Yavlinsky was explicit as to the reasons for including the Yukos representatives on the party list - this had been Yukos's condition for funding the party: "We accepted that condition and we believe that this open policy is right. We cannot earn that money ourselves, as the law does not allow us to do that."
54. Interview with Grigory Yavlinsky, NTV channel, "Apelsinovyi sok," November 2, 2003, reproduced on Yabloko Web site: http://www.eng.yabloko.ru/Publ/2003/tv/031102_ntv_yavl_.html (accessed November 8, 2003).
55. The offices of the Agency for Strategic Communication (ASK) were raided by officials from the Prosecutor-General's office on October 23, 2003, as part of the ongoing investigations into allegations of tax evasion by Yukos. Computer servers containing programs and information together with a large quantity of documents relating to Yabloko's campaign were seized in the raid. ASK director, Vadim Malkin, claimed that the confiscation of the material would paralyze Yabloko's campaign for at least a month, the length of time the servers were to be held. See "Delo YUKOSa. Prishli za 'Yablokom,'" Kommersant, October 24, 2003.
56. A Central Electoral Committee report at the end of October suggested that Yabloko was already running out of official campaign funds, having spent over eighty-seven million rubles out of its 121 million ruble campaign fund. "Parties Spending," Moscow Times, October 30, 2003.
57. In 2003 two "black PR" campaigns were launched against Yabloko. The first of these, in May 2003, sought to convince voters that Yabloko had a secret alliance with the KPRE. Stickers, posters, and billboards appeared throughout Moscow portraying a red apple together with a hammer and sickle and a collage of Yavlinsky with the KPRF leader, Gennady Zyuganov, all bearing the slogan "My vmeste!"' (We are together!). The campaign played on the fact that Yabloko had, together with the Communists, initiated a vote of no confidence in the government. Later in 2003, another antiYabloko "black PR" campaign was launched. A movement named "Yabloko without Yavlinsky" was launched in St. Petersburg by a municipal council deputy, Igor Morozov. A statement from the organization stated that Yavlinsky's "lust for power" had alienated the electorate and that he should be removed as party leader.
58. Sergei Kolmakov, "The 2003 Elections and the Fate of Democratic Parties," Russian Election Watch 3, no. 3 (2003): 7, http://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/publications/rew.html (accessed January 25, 2004).
59. Sakwa, "The 2003-2004 Russian Elections and Prospects for Democracy," Europe-Asia Studies 57, no. 3 (2005): 375-76. Sakwa also suggests that the Kremlin was actively behind attempts to ensure the return of Yabloko to the Duma, Putin inviting Yavlinsky to appear with him on television, and arranging extensive media coverage for Yabloko in the last week of the campaign.
60. Yulia Latynina, "Why the Liberals Did Not Lose the Elections," Moscow Times, December 10, 2003.
61. Jonathan Steele, "The Awful Truth: Russia's Election Was a Disaster for Democracy," The Guardian, December 10, 2003.
62. OSCE, Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, "Election Observation Mission Report," January 27, 2004, 12.
63. Ibid., 12-13.
64. Vladimir Kovalev, "Liberal Candidates Suffer 'Administrative' Pressures," St. Petersburg Times, December 2, 2003.
65. Kovalev, "Liberal Candidates Suffer."
66. OSCE, "Election Observation Mission Report," 16. The EOM monitored five national television stations (state-funded First Channel, Russia TV, and TV Center, and the private NTV and Ren TV) and seven national newspapers (the state-owned Rossiiskaya gazeta and Parlamentskaya gazeta and the private Kommersant, Moskovskii komsomolets, Komsomolskaya pravda, Novaya gazeta, and Argumenty i fakty).
67. Fadzova, "My nichem ne otlichaemsya ot Ermitazha."
68. Nataliya Borodina, former Yabloko Moscow Duma deputy, interview with author, Moscow, March 12, 2002. Borodina has written a number of articles on electoral fraud, which can be found at http://www.moscow.yabloko.ru/borodina/index.html.
69. Advisor to Grigory Yavlinsky, interview with author, Moscow, April 11, 2001.
70. "SPS, Yabloko on Their Election Defeat," Moscow News, December 10, 2003.
71. Natal'ya Gromova, "Strana ukhodit i nichego nel'zya podelat," interview with Grigory Yavlinsky, Moskovskii komsomolets, January 30, 2004.
72. Valeria Korchagina, "Yavlinsky Out of the Running," Moscow Times, December 22, 2003.
73. Shortly before the December elections, Yabloko, SPS, and the KPRF agreed to work together in monitoring the vote. The Fair Game system was devised by Ilya Ponomarev, former Yukos executive and head of the KPRF's information technology centre. The three parties provided observers at an estimated 92,000 polling stations in seventy-seven of Russia's eighty-nine regions. Observers received copies of protocols at the polling stations and contacted the Fair Game control center to report their data. Fair Game's figures were based on sixty thousand protocols, two-thirds of the total.
74. Orkhan Dzhemal, "Fal'sifikatsii. Vybory-2003: Mertye dushi proshli 5-protsentnyi bar'er," Novaya gazeta, January 29, 2004.
75. Orkhan Dzhemal, "Fair Game ob'yasnyaet," Novaya gazeta, December 18, 2003.
76. "Communists say Duma Vote Was Rigged," Gazeta.ru, December 10, 2003, reproduced on Yabloko's Web site, http://www.eng.yabloko.ru/Publ/2003/1-NET/031210_gazeta_ru.html (accessed December 13, 2003);
77. Ol'ga Kitova, "Raznye arifmetiki," Russkii kur'er, December 19, 2003.
78. "Communists and Yabloko Call into Question the Voting Results," ITAR-TASS, December 19, 2003, reproduced on Yabloko's Web site, http://www.yabloko.ru/Publ/2003/AGENCY/12/031219_itar_tass.html.
79. OSCE, "Election Observation Mission Report," 23.
80. The controversy continued into 2004. In March, Yabloko filed seventy-eight lawsuits demanding the invalidation of the results in 170 out of Russia's 225 constituencies after comparing 14,065 protocols that its observers received with the ones received by local election committees and discovering that the numbers did not match. Protocols show the vote counts registered at any given polling station. Observers and election officials should be given identical signed and stamped copies. See Viktor Khamraev, "Aktsiya 'Yabloko' pokatilos po sudam," Kommersant, March 11, 2004.
81. For an analysis of electoral manipulation from a Yabloko perspective see Galina Mikhaleva, "Election Results 2003: Another Step towards Autocracy," Russian Election Watch 3, no. 4 (2004): 9-10, http://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/publications/rew.html (accessed February 1, 2004).
82. "Communists' Demise, Nationalists on the Rise," Moscow Times, December 8, 2003.
83. Sakwa, "Russia's 'Permanent' (Uninterrupted) Elections," 109
84. The "party of power" is a peculiarly Russian phenomenon, gaining its position through its support for the president. It does not neatly fit into a single party type but, instead, can be seen as a hybrid party containing elements of the clientistic and catch-all models.
85. Both the People's Party headed by Gennady Raikov and the Russia's Rebirth-Party of Life bloc led by Duma speaker, Gennady Seleznev and Federation Council speaker Sergei Mironov received support from the Kremlin. Both leaders made clear their positions regarding their attitudes to the presidency. Seleznev stated that the bloc was "prepared for constructive and honest cooperation with the president and the government" and Mironov suggested that Putin's term in office should be extended to seven years. "The Parties to Keep an Eye on," Moscow Times, December 2, 2003.
86. In an opinion poll carried out in October 2003, two months before the parliamentary elections at which Yabloko failed to pass the 5 percent threshold, 14 percent of respondents stated that they supported the goals of Yabloko. Fond "Obshchestvennoe mnenie," "Mesto Partii 'Yabloko' na politicheskoi stsene Rossii" (Public Opinion Foundation), October 16, 2003 http://bd.fom.ru/report/map/d034126 (accessed November 11, 2003).
87. Geoffrey Pridham, "Political Parties and Their Strategies in the Transition from Authoritarian Rule: A Comparative Analysis," in Party Formation in East-Central Europe: Post-Communist Politics in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria, ed. Gordon Wightman, 11 (London: Edward Elgar, 1995).
88. Jeremy Lester, Modern Tsars and Princes: The Struggle for Hegemony in Russia (London: Verso, 1995), 51.
89. Frederic J. Fleron Jr., Richard Ahl, and Finbarr Lane, "Where Now in the Study of Russian Political Parties?" in Party Politics in Post-Communist Russia, ed. John Löwenhardt, 241 (London: Frank Cass, 1998).
90. Fleron, Ahl, and Lane, 241-42.
91. See White, "Going Their Own Way," 462-86.
92. These factors are analysed throughout White, Russian Democratic Party Yabloko.
93. The rewards for passing the threshold, however, may be greater than before. As part of President Putin's package of state reforms in the wake of the Beslan hostage crisis of September 2004, the plurality component of the electoral system has been scrapped, leaving all 450 Duma seats to be elected through the party list system. The Law on Elections of Deputies to the State Duma (Federal Law No. 51-F3) was passed on May 18, 2005. Full text available at http://www.cikrf.ru/_3/ zakon/zakon51_180505/zakon_51.htm.
94. For a detailed analysis of the divisions between Russia's liberals see White, Going Their Own Way," 462-86.
95. Caroline McGregor, "Liberals Struggle to Survive," Moscow Times, December 9, 2003.
96. A VTsIOM poll in October 2005 indicated that 32 percent would be prepared to vote for a united democratic party providing such a party had new leaders. Only fourteen percent would vote for such a party with the existing leaders. "Ob'edinenie demokraticheskikh sil: 'za' i 'protiv'," VTsIOM press release, no. 318, October 18, 2005, http://www.wciom.ru/arkhiv/tematicheskii-arkhiv/item/single/1863.html (accessed January 18, 2006).
97. Denis Babichenko, "Edinstvo protivopolozhnostei," Itogi, March 8, 2005.
98. Colton and McFaul, Popular Choice anal Managed Democracy, 207.