Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

The threat from pro-democracy activists to Russia’s ‘party of power’, led by president-elect Vladimir Putin, has dissipated somewhat.  However, the 1 April victory of an independent candidate in the mayoral election for the Russian city of Yaroslavl shows that the opposition is capable of making political gains when the circumstances are right.

Yaroslavl is a not insignificant place.  It is 200km north of Moscow and has a population of just over half-a-million, which makes it Russia’s 23rd largest city.  The election on 1 April was won by local lawyer Yevgeniy Urlashov with nearly 70% of the vote.  He defeated Yakov Yakushev, who took just 27% of the vote despite his backing by the city and regional authorities and Putin’s United Russia party.  It is true that Yakushev stood as an independent, but his association with the ‘party of power’ was well-known and assumed.

Urlashov, on the other hand, was a United Russia defector, who left the party in September 2011 on the grounds that it was doing nothing to help the people.  He stood as the ‘people’s candidate’, campaigning against corruption and in favour of a free media.

There is no doubt that Urlashov’s message resonated with disillusioned voters, but the key factor in his success was more likely to be the fact that he had the backing of almost all the anti-Kremlin political parties.  For once, they were mostly united, with the Communists, A Just Russia, Yabloko, Solidarity, and Democratic Choice all endorsing him.  He also had the financial support of the oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, the third-placed candidate in the March presidential election.  Another factor was organization.  According to local media sources, more than 1,300 observers from opposition parties and NGOs turned out to monitor voting in the city’s 269 polling stations.  Fraud was made extremely difficult, if not impossible, in contrast to the recent mayoral election in Astrakhan where the United Russia candidate is said to have benefited from massive ballot-box stuffing.

In the immediate aftermath of the Yaroslavl victory there was some understandable euphoria in the opposition camp.  Democratic Choice’s Vladimir Milov went as far as to proclaim that the victory in Yaroslavl showed “the way to the Kremlin”.  There may be something in this, but it is likely to be a long road.  As Aleksey Venediktov, editor-in-chief of Ekho Moskvy radio, put it: the opposition needs to prepare for a “long haul which will begin with local elections”, not for a revolution.

The next big test for the opposition will be municipal elections on 14 October, although it is possible that direct elections for regional leaders may be reintroduced before then.  But whenever the next test comes, the law of unintended consequences may come into play.  A new law on political parties is being introduced to make it easier for parties such as Democratic Choice and Solidarity to participate in elections – but that might make it more difficult to maintain the opposition unity that so helped Urlashov achieve victory.

NOTE: On 3 April Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, said that the US’s financing of groups and movements in Russia is becoming a problem.  He said: “We, Russia, are really concerned about the fact that Washington finances some groups and movements in Russia.  The scale of this activity is becoming a problem in our relations.”