There are sober results, and what exactly is true and what is wrong about them plays a rather minor role in this epoch that is so paralyzing for Russia. After a three-day election weekend, the ruling party United Russia has once again clearly won, but hardly anyone can look closely behind the scenes and check the authenticity of percentages. Sure, there are many complaints about tampering, video recordings of illegally stuffed urns, and the electoral commission also wants to investigate violations. But that is like worrying about the well-being of individual fir trees where large areas of the forest have already been cut down. Democracy in Russia has long since been radically truncated. And the choice is more like the end of a dark decade.
Ten years ago she showed how lively and pluralistic Russian society can be. Not only protests critical of the government shaped a liberal phase at that time, satire was back in vogue, cartoonists were busy, newspapers surprised. But there is hardly anything left of the burgeoning liberalism. The Russian state has taken control of public space within a decade. He urges state employees to vote in the Duma elections, he prevents real opposition. He blocks critical Internet sites and fillets swear words out of theater plays, as if to try to tame the spirit of art. It is a weak state that resorts to such means.
Prosperity is at risk and frustration has grown
Legislative, executive and judicial branches, the three pillars of a constitutional state, are becoming increasingly blurred in Russia. Therefore, the expected victory of the Kremlin party is little more than the cool, power-securing confirmation of the political system. The fact that the success of all the questionable efforts of the authorities is even weaker than in the previous election shows how much the alienation between state and society has grown. People hardly have much more means than not to vote, or at least to vote for a Communist candidate because he does not belong to the unpopular party of power.
There are committed Russians who do not surrender, who work in niches for social and environmental projects and still invigorate a civil society. However, where the boundaries of politics are exceeded, their work is also endangered. For the others, the following applies: distrust and caution towards the state have grown more and more into apathy, powerlessness and resignation. Hardly anyone in Russia is still making a fuss about the fact that the election was obviously helped in different ways.
A depoliticized society withdrawn from material needs is a great advantage for the leadership. It facilitates undisturbed governance. The guarantee of full fridges has long made up for the lack of political freedom. But prosperity is at risk, real income has fallen, and frustration has grown. What the increasing distance between state and population can cause is currently evident in the pandemic, where state authorities are making extreme efforts to convince people in Russia to vaccinate, although no other country has developed, touted and promoted a promising vaccine so early also started.
Climate crises and digitization – Russia cannot refuse change
The fact that, despite the immense annoyance towards the state and the parties, President Vladimir Putin is still quite untouched, confirms the mistrust in the system rather than contradicting it. While in Germany the successor to the long-standing head of government is being decided with tension, but ultimately quite calmly, many people perceive possible changes in Russia as an incalculable risk.
But Putin (and especially the big country itself) is dependent on a self-confident society. Especially since Russia is also facing change. The leadership in Moscow has long recognized the dangers of climate change, and the population is already feeling them first-hand: thawing ones Permafrost soils, Floods, droughts, burning forests. In addition, the inevitable modernization and digitization – all of these are changes that an intimidated, lethargic population will support much more passively and probably more slowly than necessary.
The increasingly authoritarian political course has driven many Russians into internal emigration, scientists and part of the middle class also abroad; this makes the problems bigger. The country could use more pluralism, but the election and the months before that have shown that the state wants less competition. Nothing about that will change for the time being. The next important vote is in three years, when a new president is elected in Russia. It should be the old one, and he will do everything possible to prevent a mood of optimism in society.