Is Russia in a Communist State Again
Moscow polling station No. 151 was set up on the premises of the state Gulag History Museum, just a short stroll away from blood-curdling testimony of the crimes of Communist Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Yet, according to official preliminary voting results, the Communist Party won the precinct with near 29 percentage of the vote, followed by twenty.3 pct for the ruling United Russia political party.
The Gulag museum polling station results are indicative of a surge in forcefulness for the Communist Political party of the Russia (KPRF), which is fix to proceeds 15 seats in the new State Duma, the lower parliament firm, co-ordinate to preliminary official results from elections marred by prove of fraud.
Co-ordinate to independent election monitors and to the party itself -- whose leaders all the same march regularly to place red carnations at Stalin's grave -- the heir to the Communist Party of the Soviet Wedlock really polled much better in a surprising bear witness of strength compared to contempo national elections.
"We went out to all the voters and said: this is what we are offering," said party leader Gennady Zyuganov the day after polls closed. "The voters listened to us. The voters believed united states of america. The voters voted for us." The party fared particularly well in the Far East, the Urals, and the mid-Volga region.
In the 2016 Duma elections, the Communists polled only over 13 percent and picked up 42 seats in legislature. That was a disastrous dip for them compared to 2011, when they got just over 19 percentage and were awarded 92 seats.
Co-ordinate to the preliminary results from the September 17-xix elections, they were close to 19 percent once more in the political party-list voting but are on track to hold but 57 of the Duma'south 450 seats: They were awarded only ix of 225 single-mandate seats, with United Russia sweeping up 198 of them.
In brusque, United Russia is fix to take 72 per centum of the Duma seats later polling merely under 50 percent of the party-list vote, while the second-identify Communists will have 12.7 per centum of the seats with 19 percentage of the vote.
According to independent statistician Sergei Shpilkin, United Russia actually received 31-33 pct of the vote.
Annotator Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Moscow Center told Current Time that the scale of the Communist Party's gains co-ordinate to official figures would seem to indicate that little will change in the new Duma.
"It isn't adept for the Communists to get too many votes because then they would accept to explain themselves to the presidential administration," he told Current Time, the Russian-language network led past RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.
"In principle, I think, they volition be forgiven for 20 percent. But if suddenly they had 25 or 30 percent, that would already be going too far," Kolesnikov said. "In that example, Zyuganov would have to acknowledge a new reality and would be constantly fighting to keep his faction in line."
'Changing Party'
A vast increment in the number of mandates for the Communists likely would have forced Zyuganov to include many of the younger party members who have made their political careers locally by relying on 18-carat public support. Samara regional lawmaker, pop YouTube personality, and up-and-coming Communist Nikolai Bondarenko is one such figure.
Thirty-seven-twelvemonth-old Moscow professor Mikhail Lobanov -- who lost a single-mandate race to United Russia'southward Oleg Popov, co-ordinate to preliminary official figures that he disputes -- could be some other. Lobanov's candidacy was supported by the KPRF, although he is not a party member. He sees a changing political party, i that could be less amenable to the Kremlin in the long run.
"The KPRF has been under pressure for the concluding 20 or more years," Lobanov said of the political party'southward role every bit party of the so-called systemic opposition -- ostensibly opposition parties that generally support the Kremlin in substitution for a share of the perks of power. "Some things that wait in my eyes and the optics of others like unjustifiable compromises are probable the result of this force per unit area. Information technology is clear that in connectedness with the radicalization of the KPRF or the radicalization of its rank-and-file membership and some individual deputies, this pressure is going to increase, and repressions may exist used confronting the organization as a whole."
After his meaning atomic number 82 at the polls was reversed when the regime released its controversial online-voting results, Lobanov told RFE/RL's Russian Service that he intends to fight the alleged fraud -- and that he is looking beyond the party'southward leadership for support.
The protest against the elections must include "not just the leaders and deputies of the KPRF," he added, but a new base of support.
"Let's utilise this opportunity to express the opinions of all those who don't agree with what is going on, who don't agree with what happened in these elections, and who don't agree on other crucial questions that we simply don't talk well-nigh in this state," Lobanov said.
The Communists probable benefited from some of the tactics the government used to secure victory for United Russian federation, which serves as one of President Vladimir Putin'due south master levers of power. After the regime disqualified all the opposition hopefuls who were associated with imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, a pregnant portion of the electorate was left without candidates or a party to dorsum. Navalny'south Smart Voting system -- an election tactic that sought to rally the protest vote around the candidate in each race who was deemed most likely to defeat their United Russia rival, regardless of party or credo -- urged voters in many races to dorsum Communist candidates.
At the same time, the government apparently pulled out all the stops to mobilize state-dependent workers, such as teachers and medical, armed forces, police force enforcement, and defense industry personnel. And although these voters appeared in droves at the polls, specially on the first day of voting, many of them likewise likely were tired of United Russian federation'due south decades in power and may have bandage their votes instead for the familiar Communist brand.
According to Kolesnikov, the Communists benefited primarily from the "protest vote" both within and outside the traditional United Russia electorate.
"I'm talking near the portion of votes that would, under normal circumstances, be cast 'confronting all,'" he said. "Only, equally we recollect, that line on the election was taken away some fourth dimension ago."
Kolesnikov also argued that the new Duma will nowadays no real challenge to the Kremlin, which is now focused on the presidential election due in 2024, when Putin'southward quaternary term expires.
"The Duma volition take to prove its effectiveness to its bosses," Kolesnikov said. "And this new effectiveness, a deputy's key performance indicators, are more made-up repressive laws, more than idiotic laws. And that is exactly how the system will go on to work. Nosotros need to brace ourselves for a quite difficult period, even because that the last twelvemonth was extremely hard."
Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, whose party failed to overcome the v percent hurdle to win party-list seats and was not awarded any unmarried-mandate districts, said before long before the vote that he sees essentially no difference between United Russia and the Communist Political party, both of which he argues favor "postmodern Stalinism."
"Yous inquire me what will happen after the elections," Yavlinsky told RFE/RL's Russian Service on September 15. "If the Stalinists win, and then it volition be modern Stalinism with all its 'foreign agents' and 'undesirable organizations.' The constitution has already been changed. Everything is in place for this."
"The joking effectually ended a yr ago when they changed the constitution," he added, referring to amendments that, among other things, gave Putin the option of seeking reelection in 2024 and 2030. "It's merely that not very many people understood this."
Written past Robert Coalson based on reporting by RFE/RL'southward Russian Service and Current Fourth dimension
Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-communist-party-duma/31473164.html
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