Institute of Modern Russia

Chatting with a colleague two days before the elections, we came to the unanimous though not sparklingly original conclusion that Putin's regime was doomed. The answer to the question of when the regime was going to fall was even more definite: somewhere from two days to five years. The results of the election, nevertheless, came as a surprise.

The decreasing popularity of United Russia and of Putin & Medvedev's tandemocracy was first observed by sociologists sometime in the middle of 2010. That was when surveys began showing the gradual growth of the percentage of people expressing readiness to participate in public protests.

The changes were slow at the beginning, though I wouldn't say that the regime neglected or didn't pay attention to those early warning signs. All possible preventive measures were enacted: political parties that were within manipulation range of the Kremlin were not officially registered; people were scratched off the list of candidates with an iron hand, so that parties admitted to the elections were secure to the point of being sterile; the billionaire [Mikhail] Prokhorov was dismissed from the election campaign because he took his new duties and responsibilities too seriously.

All these measures were aimed at getting the desired results. In the meantime, though, the combined contrast between negative public opinion and a rather peaceful social situation allowed authorities to relax. That is probably why the routine political procedure – in the minds of Kremlin’s spin doctors – brought some very unexpected consequences.

The country was looking forward to the resolution of the "intrigue:" who would be appointed the next president. On September 24, the intrigue was resolved in the most trivial way: Putin brought himself back to the presidential seat. The overwhelming and characteristically Soviet grandiosity of the ruling party’s congress was nothing new to anyone. The manner of the announcement was quite habitual, with the cynicism verging on mockery so typical of Putin. But the reaction of people was the unexpected element: many people not only got mad, they got furious. For ten years, they had been tolerating and swallowing the lies, rudeness and clowning of the petty hooligans. But now they were furious.

All this lends support to the validity of the “tension systems” theory by remarkable German/American social psychologist Kurt Lewin. Russian society together with public opinion proved to be the kind of tension system that went out of balance in an unpredictable moment and on unpredictable grounds. According to Lewin's theory, not only is our tension system out of balance, it has also begun to change rapidly.

The decreased ratings took another dramatic drop right after September 24, 2011. Having discovered an unexpected problem, authorities began acting fidgety and fussy. When the election campaign began, local governors in Russia’s regions were given the task of securing at least 65 percent of votes for United Russia, and now the Kremlin’s splendid plans seemed more and more unrealistic..

The situation changed dramatically again two weeks prior the elections: public opinion polls revealed several regions of the country where support for the ruling party had decreased to absolutely unacceptable levels. The governors were called again, but the tone this time was different: now there was a plea to “pull up” the votes to at least fifty percent.

The authorities sensed the changes before the public did. That was why nobody quite understood the reason for bringing thirty thousand Nashi recruits (United Russia supporters) to Moscow before the elections and for flooding the capital with fifty thousand additional police. Meanwhile, United Russia’s campaign was inert and dull. Medvedev and Putin’s attempts to win back the votes and animate the campaign were not doing any good and were instead making the efforts seem even more awkward: how can one gain electorate's sympathies praising badminton as a key tool for the health of the nation?!

The ruling party’s talentless election campaign was compensated for with open violations against competitors: officials at various levels openly traded votes and bribes for giving votes to the right party were sometimes combined with threats. Right before the elections, the deceitful and criminal campaign against the NGO Golos (Voice) began. Golos is an old and well-known organization in Russia that monitors the elections.

Election day didn't bring any surprises as far as ballot-rigging was concerned. From the early morning, observers were reportedly driven out of polling stations before the sealing of the ballot-boxes. Then came reports from voters that ballot-boxes had already been stuffed with ballots. Then some eager beavers were reportedly putting packs of tens ballots in the ballot-boxes. Then the "carousels" came spinning around. The mechanics of this are simple: a bus full of people with absentee voting certificates comes through the polling stations, but their certificates are never invalidated or taken away, meaning they can be used several times. In the evening, we got news of elections officers fleeing polling stations with the ballots before they were counted and registered using the official protocol; about strange delays in vote counting; about communication breakdowns, etc. On Monday afternoon people were already talking about striking discrepancies between the original records from polling stations and the summary table copies.

Everything that was going on more or less resembled the situation from four or eight years ago, except for the following:

• First of all, as I already mentioned, the social atmosphere has begun to change. The authorities may be excused even for repressions but never for the hysterical fidgeting.
• Secondly, the tremendous scale of the violations and their open impudence.
• And thirdly, society got hold of innovative technologies that had not been available during previous elections, and instead of complaining to the authorities about the violations committed by those same authorities, people began documenting violations on their cameraphones, uploading videos to social media, and raging.

That is why I leave open the possibility that on Sunday night, the country took a step away from Putin's Russia and towards a post-Putin Russia. To be continued; participation is welcome.