Dmitry Rogozin's Rodina party has been banned from the Moscow City Duma elections for running a truly offensive, racist TV ad - or, if you believe some commentators, for outgrowing their intended role as the Kremlin's "loyal opposition." Andy at SiberianLight has been covering developments in this story, which is an interesting one and could be providing a look at developments to come in Russian domestic politics in the next 5-10 years.Ilya Yashin, the co-chair of the Yabloko party's youth wing and a candidate in tomorrow's elections, has an interesting forecast on his LiveJournal blog about what the outcome of the ban on Rodina might be in the next several years (it seems like a conspiracy theory, although it's hard to tell who Yashin is implying the conspirators to be), along with this caricature of Rogozin dressed up as a young fascist. Yabloko's official point of view on the removal of Rodina from the elections is as follows (my translation):
"...we believe that the removal of Rodina from the elections in response to Zhirinovsky's lawsuit has nothing whatsoever to do with the battle against the xenophobia of nationalism and does not serve the cause of eradicating fascism in Russia."Rogozin - who, incidentally, shares a birthday with Iosif Stalin and Mikhail Saakashvili - has always seemed like a dangerously ambitious politician to me, the kind of guy who will do anything to get to the top and stay there. While there may be legitimate planks in Rodina's platform, I hope that Rogozin and his team understand what they seem to be doing - and how dangerous it is to loose the genie of ultra-nationalism onto the main stage of Russian politics.
Or maybe I'm taking this all too seriously, and the whole thing was an elaborately choreographed "PR-aktsiia," agreed upon ahead of time by all involved except the chumps who make up the general voting public, to set up Rodina as a target for the supposedly "anti-fascist" youth movement "Nashi." The fact that the LDPR clowns were apparently the ones to levy the charge of racism which got Rodina banned only makes one more suspicious that the whole thing is a puppet show, given LDPR's history of selling its political mouthpiece to the highest bidder. That's all just speculation, of course; on the other hand, maybe this is what "managed democracy" means to someone with a KGB background.
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More on Rodina (in case the links above are not enough reading material) - all in English:
Small factsheet from MosNews.
Interview with Rodina's "leading ideologue," Mikhail Delyagin - worth reading.
"Experts" at the Russia Profile website discuss what they're calling "Rodina-gate."
Blogger Veronica Khokhlova on Rodina.
Background on Rogozin's political career from RFE/RL.
2 comments:
I think one of the most interesting comments on Rodina-gate is made be Peter Lavalle. It's here http://www.untimely-thoughts.com/index.html?cat=3&type=3&art=2084
Konstantin, I woke up in the middle of the night here in DC (around 5am on the morning of Dec 5) and read the article you mention. It was a very interesting analysis, although strangely (for something written by a native English-speaker) it seemed to be riddled with spelling and syntax errors. I guess Lavelle's taken it down for editing or something, since right now (1pm on the 5th) there's no sign of it on his website. I hope he puts it back up, because I agree with you that it was a good analysis.
If I recall the basics of Lavelle's theory correctly, Rodina saw that they would be able to get more publicity and raise their profile by running afoul of the hate speech laws than by barely squeaking into the MosGorDuma with 10+% of the vote (or maybe not even making it in at all). This scandal has given them lots of free advertising and "raskrutka," which they'll use to position themselves for 2007.
I would point out that this theory is not necessarily inconsistent with the theory that this was all a Kremlin-orchestrated machination to establish or strengthen Rodina as a "boogeyman" of Russian politics. It's not hard to see how it might profit Putin's team to have on the political playing field a nationalist force which is frightening to many moderate domestic and western observers and lead them to conclude that EdRo (in 2007) and Putin's designated successor (in 2008) will be the only way to keep the nationalists from taking over.
In my mind, the only question is whether Rodina's publicity stunt was coordinated with the Kremlin or not. If it wasn't, it was a blunder on the part of the guys in the Kremlin who administer "telephone justice" and who made the call to the Supreme Court ordering them to uphold the decision barring Rodina from the elections. Because the Kremlin has so often been tone-deaf in such political matters in the past, it wouldn't surprise me too much if this was in independent publicity stunt by Rodina, and the Kremlin's heavy-handedness played right into Rogozin's hands. That still doesn't entirely explain LDPR's role in filing the complaint, however.
Or perhaps (leaving no theoretical stone unturned) this was just a situation where Rodina's admen overstepped the bounds of the hate speech law inadvertently, and the whole scandal surrounding the consequences was not foreseen or planned by anyone. Under the purest version of this theory, the judges who barred Rodina were representatives of an independent judiciary acting without any control from the executive branch.
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