Russian Democracy NGO Opens in New York City

Back in October I noted a story where Putin announced he would seek to establish NGOs in Europe and the United States that would work to promote democracy and human rights. In today’s Moscow Times a story covers the registration of the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation in New York city.

The group, which claims to be completely independent from the Kremlin and is funded by private Russian businessmen, will work to improve the reputation of Russia in the U.S. and provide analysis of democracy in the U.S.

The director couldn’t help himself in taking a swipe at Freedom House who recently rated Russia as “not free” in their annual report on the state of freedom in the world. Money quote:

“I have no desire to copy the behavior of organizations like Freedom House,” Kucherena said. “We have completely different tasks. … Freedom House has only one goal: to publish data, which was assembled using methodologies that nobody understands, in order to draw attention to themselves.”

The organization is also planning an office in Paris with perhaps additional office in other European countries and some former Soviet states. According to the article, they are currently hiring staff for their NYC office. Time to dust off that resume.

I Didn’t Vote!

A fascinating movement has grown in small Ingushetia, a small autonomous republic within the Russian Federation. In the recent parliamentary elections, local officials claimed that more than 98.35% of the registered voters turned out and98.72% of those supported Putin’s United Russia.

These figures are blatantly false and a local movement has started to gather signatures of people officially stating “I Did Not Vote!” Paul Goble, who runs a great blog on Eurasia, has been following the movement. His latest post details that the movement has gathered signed statements from a stunning 54.5% of registered voters indicating that they did not submit ballots.

That type of organization is pretty impressive. Paul indicates that other groups may seek to replicate it elsewhere, but I doubt that will be feasible. This movement is finally being picked up by the domestic and international media.

Money quote:

The signed declarations have been put into 290 volumes that are now in the hands of Moscow lawyers who plan to transmit them to the Procurator General of the Russian Federation with a request that the election results from Ingushetia at least be reviewed and possibly overturned.

Reporting of this kind is the reason for the continuing efforts by Zyazikov and Moscow to close down the independent-minded Ingushetia.ru site. Having failed to do so through pressure on the local ISP provider, redirection of visitors to porno sites, and threats on the life of the site owner’s father, this week the authorities did something new.

They overloaded the site’s popular forums with material so radical that its posting would certainly subject the site’s current owners to charges of extremism and thus forced them to restrict access to the forums to registered users lest such posts become the basis for officials to shut down the site itself.

The state is clearing feeling the heat of this grassroots movement. In a country where the central government has such firm control over many of the levers of power, I believe one of the best tactics to undermine it is to do exactly this. Gather irrefutable evidence and throw yourself with it at the corrupt gears of the state and demand a response. Every time the Russian government fails to act on something this blatant, they hurt their international credibility and domestic legitimacy as proving for the “rule of law.”

Russia Election Watch

Russia is gearing up for its election season this winter. The Duma, Russia’s legislature, will stand for election in December and Russia is set to elect a new president in March. As I’ve noted on the DP before, democracy in Russia is on life support. Regional governors are no longer elected, the activity of civil society organizations have been curtailed by new laws and registration requirements, long-standing parties have been denied registration, and the independent media has slowly been consumed by the Russian state or Kremlin allies.

While there is little doubt that the upcoming elections will fail to meet international standards and the results will strengthen the Kremlin’s hand, much can be gleaned from the process. The manner in which these elections are carried out will tell outsiders to what extent the Kremlin will go to solidify its hold on power.

Furthermore, the Putin-succession process adds to the drama of the election season. While some observers think that Putin’s recent announcement that he would agree to head the party list for United Russia may indicate Putin’s intention to redirect power to the prime minister’s office, I doubt that is likely to occur. I still believe that Vladimir has a few more twists and turns up his sleeves in the coming months.

I’m going to try and post some interesting stories related to this process during the next few months. While I can’t promise daily commentary, I’ll try to at least link to interesting stories in the press and posts from other blogs.

There are a few interesting stories today that are worth pointing out:

• Carnegie’s Morning Brief links to a NYTimes story detailing the Kremlin’s attempt to further extend government control over the Internet. The take away from this article, besides increased state control, is the extent that the Kremlin is using “pro-Putin” youth group to counter opposition groups, even in blog coverage of protest events.
• In the lead up to the parliamentary elections, the Russian government has reached an “agreement” with food producers and retailers to institute a freeze on prices. Inflation and price increases in basic foodstuffs in recent weeks has made the Kremlin uneasy. After all, when your legitimacy is tenuous when basing your legitimacy on circuses and bread, and the bread is too expensive.
• Pro-Putin demonstrations have recently taken place across the country. The events, allegedly organized by state officials, are urging Putin to stay on as president after his second term ends in March. The take-away: the extent of the cult of personality around Putin is strong. Don’t be surprised to see a “grass-roots” movement seek to change the constitution or pressure Putin’s successor to step down.
• Eleven parties have been approved by the Election Commission to contest in the December elections. Three parties were barred because of problems with the membership signatures turned into the Election Commission for registration. The take-away: eleven parties is a significant amount. Given Russia’s new PR electoral system with a 7% threshold to enter the Duma, this could lead to an utter sweep by United Russia, the pro-Putin party of power. A recent opinion poll stated that approximately 66% of voters plan to vote for United Russia in December.
• Lastly, the Russian Election Commission announced that Russia will invite international observers for the December 2 parliamentary elections. The invitations will be sent out this week and the delegation is expected to reach 400 people. The take-away: While it is good that Russia is finally inviting the monitors, it is too late for any meaningful oversight to be implemented. Obersvation missions typically have a smaller group that observes and analyzes the pre-election evironment and election process months in advance of election day. Additionally, this mission will be signiciantly smaller than previous missions. For the 2003 parliamentary elections the OSCE sent 400 observers alone. The 400 this time will include observers from the OSCE and the Nordic Council, along with the shame election monitoring organizations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Commonwealth of Independent States.