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20.12.07
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A Political Murder Attempt
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Comment by Dmitry Kataev
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The wounded man didn’t excel in the competition?
Let’s imagine a hypothetical report in the newspapers: “Grand master Ivanov did not win the chess championship, firstly because he is actually not very talented. Secondly, before the decisive game, he did not analyze the two key combinations that could have come in very handy. And, thirdly, right at the entrance to the championship premises, a Mr. X repeatedly stabbed him with a knife…”
Doesn’t the logic of this account seem absurd, and, more importantly, immoral? How can one debate the lack of proper preparation alongside attempted murder?
But this type of “logic” has held us in captivity for an entire week following the State Duma elections. Who is “us”? The whole of Russian society, from “courtier” political analysts to radical oppositionists, including the “wounded” members, that is, the purposely failed during this election democratic opposition parties, and also the global community.
We saw participants of this election campaign get killed.
Candidate Farid Babayev was shot. Even though it is a bit too late now, let’s take a moment to pause, breathe out, realize and become horrified; let’s express our condolences to his family and friends, to the Dagestan Yabloko and all members of the Yabloko party. If something like this happened in Georgia or Ukraine, the Russian press would have raised a wave of righteous wrath! But in our own home we’re used to everything. It’s called “stability.”
Some 20 or 30 SPS candidates were morally destroyed and blackmailed into not only withdrawing from the elections, but also covering the party with dirt. Likewise nothing new for the “sovereign democracy.”
Provokingly absurd pretenses were used to confiscate 15 million copies of SPS propaganda materials in 20 regions simultaneously, materials that had already been approved by the Central Election Commission. Moreover, even calendars were confiscated! Publishing facility management was persecuted. Now, that’s something new.
For the first time, the “authorities” so insolently interfered with the election process, and the Central Election Commission so demonstratively withdrew from it. SPS suffered an informational blockade, and the electorate was robbed of one of the participating parties. In the meantime, the Russian and world mass media were concerned with the fate of temporarily closed Georgian television companies.
SPS also underwent a financial blockade: its sponsors were “pressed”, bank transactions were delayed. (Traditionally, since the romantic 1990s, we underestimate the financial springs of elections. Over these years propaganda, pickets and sometimes even demonstrations have become things that have to be paid for.) A financial blockade is by itself a sufficient measure to paralyze the campaign of any party. But how can we keep on living and functioning, when as a result of the election, the 60 million rubles of the election deposit won’t be returned to SPS, and the party will have to compensate the state for “free” promotion in almost the same amount. They’re finishing us off!
And when one of the candidates, the President, publicly accused his opponents of trying to completely destroy and plunder everything in Russia, with national television running this speech over and over, the shadow of his native KGB rose, and only half a step separated us from an appeal to mercilessly destroy the enemies of the people. Isn’t this outright abuse of official duties and position, a demonstrative violation of election laws, isn’t it extremism?
Let’s not forget the series of false leaflets supposedly made by SPS -- an attempted political murder, committed with exceptional cynicism. AIDS patients and homosexuals were used for speculation, and there were fake demands to transfer sponsor donations to SPS bank accounts. Senior citizens were deceived by being promised special 50 percent food discount cards on behalf of SPS. Seventeen-year-old boys and girls, who in all sincerity and out of lack of common sense went door to door delivering these fake promises were never paid… The organizers of such provocations deserve all the contempt in the world!
“Spoiler” parties were let out onto the democratic and liberal political flank. They miraculously amassed necessary quantities of members, received the right to participate in the elections, and got money for the participation deposit foregone by definition. The signatures in their support were, of course, without a doubt recognized as true. Please note – there were no spoiler parties for the left flank, for the Communist Party.
Can all of the above be considered attempted political murder of the democratic opposition? Isn’t it disinformation? Isn’t it depriving the people of their right to a conscious choice thus depriving them of power? On the whole, isn’t it a state coup?
Another stab, and one in the back at that, was delivered by those who inventively suggested that people should not come to vote, should take their ballots home with them, should ruin the ballot, etc. Where are they now, these participants of the boycott? They’ve simply drowned in the sea of those who just don’t care. Where are all the ruined or appropriated ballots? Was at least one member of a local commission moved to read the words “A Different Russia” on a ballot when counting the votes? Or maybe the Sire was touched?
Idiots! This is not an insult. It’s just that in Ancient Greece this word was used to define people who did not participate in the political life of the country. But the masterminds of all this idiocy actually did participate in the election process, and their participation was active and purposeful. Because the only people who heard them and followed their advice were opposition voters. Their partaking in the election contributed to the failure of opposition parties and was its only goal and purpose.
Certainly today there are crowds of prophets making a fuss: “I warned you, it was stupid to expect the regime to behave any differently, and so it was stupid for the opposition to participate in this election!” Sure, expecting something else would have been stupid, but hoping for it was not. Because if there is anything constant in Russian politics, it’s tactical unpredictability. And the stakes were high – the existence of any opposition in the Duma. Not taking advantage of even a minimal chance would have been stupid.
So what conclusions can be drawn from the “election results,” the 1 percent for SPS and 1.5 percent for Yabloko? None at all. Would it be justified to even speak of political defeat when there is so much evidence of attempted political murder by non-political methods? No.
Were any mistakes made in the election campaigns of these parties, in their action or lack thereof in the previous years? Of course. But following the attempted political murders of SPS and Yabloko before the eyes of Russia and the whole world, nobody will ever be able to gauge the real importance of the opposition’s mistakes, nor the importance of its positive, constructive activity. Nobody will ever find out what the results of a normal election campaign would have been, and whether Yabloko and SPS together would have received 10 or 30 percent of the votes.
Will the attempt transpire into actual murder, or will it remain just an attempt? That depends on us – on the people who, despite everything, voted for the opposition, and on the members or followers of the parties who truly partook in the party activities.
We are now the only ones with a moral right and obligation to critically analyze the activity of opposition parties before and during the election campaign. And the duty of any person in Russia or abroad is to condemn the demonstrative, provocative attempts at political murder of people and parties, to despise the dictatorship established with the help of these attempts, and to take a sober view of the “stability” that is based on them.
The hypothetical criminal report we began this account with likely ends in the following: “The guards who hurried to the site drew up a report on the fact that grand master Ivanov attacked Mr. X, and as a means of adequate self-defense the latter used a knife, which he turned out to have by pure coincidence. The guards refused to detain Mr. X. The Basmanny Inter-district Court refused to issue a warrant for Mr. X’s arrest, also taking into consideration a positive reference from his employer. The wounded man is in intensive care, in a stable but grave condition.”
Dmitry Kataev is a recent candidate for the State Duma from the SPS party and Deputy of the Moscow City Council and Moscow Duma in 1990-2005. |
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