Breaking the back of the opposition and standardizing
television news coverage only appears to eradicate politics.
Politics don't disappear; they change. The president of a democratic
country doesn't fear the head of his security detail or the minister
of defense. His political enemies are well known. They sit in
parliament, win regional elections and attack the president on
television every day. The president of a country with managed
democracy has a much harder time. No matter where he looks, everyone
appears to be loyal, but there's no way to know what they're really
thinking. Blood-thirsty dictators have the most difficult time of
all, of course. During the early days of World War II, Kliment
Voroshilov and Vyacheslav Molotov came to Stalin for instructions
but found the "father of nations" huddled under his desk. Stalin
seriously feared that he would be arrested.
Kasyanov's return to the political stage made clear
that he is pinning his political hopes on the mid- and low-level
bureaucrats who account for most of the Russian political class.
These are people who would never admit that they're not on board
with the president, of course. One day they'll just happen to be on
board with a different president.
The events of recent months have alarmed not only
the liberal right. Caught up in its own wars over principle and
property, the Kremlin leadership has largely lost the trust of the
bureaucrats in the trenches who implement its decisions. Well-known
Izvestia columnist Maxim Sokolov has aptly called this group the
"nomenklatura opposition." This loss of faith has resulted not from
the scheming of agents of influence or pressure from the outside,
but from the Kremlin's total inability to understand that its own
mistaken policy choices have led to the rapid collapse of state
power during Putin's second term in office.
This would all be well and good if the response to
Kasyanov's return to the political stage were even a partial shift
of direction in the country's development. But no such change is
going to occur. Instead, we can expect an all-out offensive against
Kasyanov in the media. Paradoxically, the former prime minister's
chances of victory are closely linked to just such an assault.
The pollsters rightly point out that Kasyanov is
hardly a popular figure. He's certainly no Viktor Yushchenko. And no
amount of money from the United States, George Soros or a certain
famous emigre in London can change that. (To be clear, even if Boris
Berezovsky did contribute to the Yushchenko campaign, I don't
believe his money had much impact on the outcome of the election.)
But if the Kremlin really tries, it might just be able to make
Kasyanov into a viable opposition candidate by arresting his
backers, driving him into the arms of all sorts of "political
allies" and filling the airwaves with personal attacks. But then the
Kremlin's political operatives don't need me to tell them how it's
done.
Konstantin Sonin is a professor at the New
Economic School/CEFIR.
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