From Kirill Poludon at Kasparov.ru:

Russian voters are not interested in electoral fraud or campaign violations since they have no way of contesting election results. The efforts of one civil group that spent a year collecting signatures for a petition to have the 2011 State Duma election results declared illegitimate has thus been thwarted. Systemic oppositionists have not been any help, either: members of Yabloko, A Just Russia, and the Communist Party have refused to contest the election results and ignored the 13 thousand signatures collected by the group.

On December 14, the Russian Supreme Court threw out a request by five voters to disband the Central Electoral Commission, which confirms Duma election results. In addition to the signatures, the group of activists submitted 60 pages of evidence that the 2011 elections had been fraudulent. Federal Judge Nikolai Tolcheyev, however, was unconvinced, and rejected the request on the basis that the applicants “are contesting acts that do not affect [their own] rights, freedoms, or legal interests.” The activists disagreed.

The group decided to start the petition almost immediately after the controversial elections. “I was outraged,” said journalist Aleksei Torgashev. “But I didn’t want to just go to a rally and yell ‘Putin, go!’ Something concrete needed to be done.”

Leading activist Mikhail Shneyder of the Solidarity opposition movement introduced the idea to send a petition to the Supreme Court during a December 13, 2011, meeting with members of the first mass rally on Bolotnaya Square.

“We collected signatures by hand during rallies and marches. There was a huge torrent of pages of signatures for new elections after a blank form was published in Novaya Gazeta,” Shneyder told Kasparov.ru.

In six months, the group has managed to collect 13,117 in-person signatures. Several hundred were rejected for having insufficient information. The group chose a paper petition instead of an online one to have the added emphasis of the sheer weight of the paper, as well as to prevent critics from complaining about automated electronic signatures.

The activists planned to submit the petition in conjunction with opposition politicians, but members of Yabloko and A Just Russia almost immediately declined to contest the election results.

“We tried to cooperate with the Communist Party. They told us that the suit was being prepared; they constantly dragged it out. But a few days before the one-year limit to contest election results was up, the Communists refused to submit the complaint, even though we know it was ready. And the Communist Party didn’t even accept the election results,” Shneyder said.

“It turns out that it’s not very hard for the Kremlin to make agreements with our oppositionists. The decision to not submit the application to contest the election results was a political one,” claimed activist Grigory Sheyanov.

To prevent the total loss of a year’s worth of work and to deal “humanely” with those who signed the petition, the group decided to turn in a petition with only their names. It was rejected.

“We didn’t expect a different outcome. Yes, there is a legal stipulation that election results can only be contested by candidates. But that’s absurd. We’ll get a definitive decision from the Supreme Court and go to the Constitutional Court so that we can dispute the constitutionality of this position. Nobody before us has done this,” Sheyanov noted.

The activists who have come together over this case are unsure if their group will stay united after the final court appeals are over. In this sense, they are an analogy for the crisis within the entire protest movement.

“At the end of 2011 we found one vector – to protest unjust elections,” explained Aleksandr Rzhavsky of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Since then, different events superseded this, and the movement fell apart since there’s nothing to unite around. Even the question of political prisoners clashes with other issues.”

Although they largely expect a disappointing court outcome, the activists do not believe they have spent their time in vain. “We brought attention to the lack of legal defense for voters, we showed just how ‘oppositionist’ certain parties are, and we brought the case through to the end.” And they are convinced that, regardless of what provokes the next wave of protests, the horizontal connections and experience with the petition will add “critical mass” to future projects.

As hundreds of people rallied in Moscow in support of elections for a united council for Russia’s non-systemic opposition, electronic voting for the council was extended for another day due to powerful hacker attacks. In light of the difficulties that have been faced by the council-to-be thus far, opposition leader and Coordination Council candidate Garry Kasparov explains in this op-ed how the government’s attempts to brush off any responsibility are verifiably false.

Center of Crystallization
By Garry Kasparov
October 20, 2012
Kasparov.ru

The Orwellian semantics of the Ministry of Truth have already become an established element of our Kafkaesque reality. In this system, as everybody knows, peace means war. And when Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, responds to a question about elections to the opposition’s Coordination Council by saying: “To be honest, we aren’t paying much attention to this, since we are on a very tight schedule,” then this is a direct confirmation that the president is personally in control of a special operation to disrupt the opposition elections. The government, as opposed to the smug, shiny political scientists that it feeds, is perfectly aware of the danger of the crystallization of a center for the non-systemic opposition at a time when the System itself is in a state of heightened instability.

It was on October 20-21, 1990 that the Democratic Russia party held its founding congress, and the Chekists who built the new power vertical under Putin’s leadership remember well what the Soviet Communist Party’s inability to prevent the creation of active, independent, parallel political structures led to. The Kremlin also remembers that 150 thousand registered voters is actually quite a lot, because it refers to the mobilization of the part of society that’s politically active. The number of Russian citizens who have publicly expressed their desire to vote in the elections for Coordination Council clearly surpasses the total number of real members of all the official registered parties, including United Russia. The idea of the two million person army of United Russia and the All-Russia People’s Front, with their hundreds and thousands of Nashisti and other Putinjugend, exists only on paper, which the Putin regime de-facto admitted by ordering Sergei Mavrodi to use his neat columns of MMM members for spoiler voting.

Incidentally, by their logic, this actually makes sense. The power vertical, which has become the basic mode of operation for these crooks and thieves, can only rely on a pyramid scheme. Authoritarian regimes that only place their bets on the inertial development of social processes inevitably resort to the clumsiest possible methods of supporting the status quo. Lacking any meaningful support among active Russian citizens, the Kremlin is carrying out its traditional mobilization of power and propaganda resources. Barefaced “black humor” on state television, assaults by police and the judiciary on opposition activists, protected FSB hackers – this is the arsenal that this agonized regime is trying to use to delay its inevitable collapse.

The unprecedented efforts by Putin’s henchmen to disrupt the elections to the Russian opposition’s Coordination Council are the best possible confirmation that the idea is a good one. A legitimate body for the non-systemic opposition formed according to the results of free and fair voting can and must become the catalyst for the creation of a new political system in Russia.

Liliya Shibanova, head of the Golos Association, said on Monday that government authorities have toughened regulations on filming, which was particularly instrumental in revealing fraud in elections last December, and that members of the Central Electoral Commission have ramped up pressure on observers and active voters. Golos is the only independent electoral watchdog in Russia.

“We still haven’t moved on from that critical point where there’s a total lack of competition in the elections,” Shibanova said. “The technologies to falsify results remain in place as before, and the government has preserved the most important regions for itself, allowing opposition victories only on the municipal level.”

The Golos head noted that the only victories given to oppositionists were for members of the Yabloko party and independent candidates on the local level. Gubernatorial elections in Bryansk, Ryazan, Priamurye, Nizhny Novgorod, and Belgorod, however, all went to United Russia.

Aleksandr Kynev, an analyst from the Foundation for Information Policy Development, told Gazeta.ru that a preponderance of “spoiler parties” were also a problem for parties such as A Just Russia, the LDPR, and the Communist Party.

Such spoiler parties, which confuse voters and ultimately siphoning votes away from other parties, became possible after electoral reforms earlier this year lowered the threshold of members needed to form a party to 500. “In order for you not to get lost, you need to have a known, unique face. This can only be in the form of clear political positions, clear political steps, and bright leaders,” Kynev said.

One of the conclusions that can be reached from the December 4 elections is that the “Party of Swindlers and Thieves” has, once again, brilliantly lived up to its name. Cheating and thievery have ceased to even be an open secret, and it involved not only the massive falsifications that the party of power needed in order to hold on to their crumbling power vertical, but also the sharp rise in civil activeness, with large number of people unexpectedly refusing to play the role of silent viewers in the Kremlin’s marionette theater.

Experts in electoral math will soon undoubtedly be able to show us graphics of United Russia’s actual results. The unnatural vote spread across the various regions of the country, along with the numerous violations documented by observers at polling stations and in electoral commissions, will provide irrefutable evidence that Churov’s agency worked to over-fulfill their plan at the rate of a Stakhanovite.

By all accounts, United Russia’s objective results even across the entire country aren’t above 30 percent, and in Moscow and St. Petersburg the party in power suffered a crushing defeat, loosing not only to the Communist Party, but even, most likely, to A Just Russia. This casts doubt upon the professional integrity of our so-called sociological services, whose “public opinion polls” predicted just a week ago that United Russia would have the support of 53 percent of the population. But if the Foundation for Public Opinion and the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion aren’t ashamed of their Kremlin-provided roofs, then one would hope to hear from the Levada Center, which holds its reputation more dear, an explanation as to why their predictions turned out to be even more optimistic than the final results of Mr. Churov’s agency.

Another result of December 4 is that we can be certain that the period of social apathy that Russian society succumbed to ten years ago is now a relic of the past.

But today’s main question, of course, is about the readiness of the systemic opposition to begin a fight against United Russia’s dictate. It would be naive to say that the Communist Party, LDPR, or United Russia together with Yabloko are going to achieve a full nullification of the falsified elections, but the people who voted for them have the right to expect, at minimum, a demand to hold a recount where mass violations are uncovered, and the criminal prosecution of officials guilty of committing and hiding these crimes.

In addition, the systemic opposition is going to have to resolve the question of fielding candidates for president. Now that it’s been spooked, the government is going to try to minimize its risks and prevent the rise of any notable figures who are capable of uniting the protest electorate, which is exploding in front of their eyes. It’s not worth waiting for any revelations from the Communist Party or LDPR. Although, the Communists are completely capable of finding a more suitable candidate than Zyuganov, who feels at home in his comfortable role as the government’s sparring partner. But for A Just Russia, if it is, contrary to expectations, prepared to challenge the Putin regime, one potential solution comes to mind. Oksana Dmitrieva, whose success in a presidential election is something out of a science fiction novel – at least in the two capitals – could become the candidate whose presence makes a second round entirely plausible.

The events of the forthcoming week will put an end to the dispute that the nonsystemic opposition has been having for the past several months. The various plans of action for December 4 rested on one key point of disagreement: whether or not conditions exist where the Kremlin-fed systemic opposition could agree upon a bunt against Putin. A more favorable situation than the present is impossible to imagine.

If Mironov and Ko demonstrate their readiness to begin a fight to dismantle the regime by unleashing a real pre-electoral campaign attacking the national leader with the same principles with which they were ready to “flush the Party of Swindlers and Thieves down the toilet,” then I will be ready to publicly admit my mistake in judging the ineffectiveness of existing electoral mechanisms.

But if the actions of the systemic opposition lead to the emasculation of popular protest and turn out to be just a storm in a teacup that ends with the redistribution of Duma portfolios and financial flows, then I expect that my opponents will publicly admit that it is impossible to change the Putin regime within any sort of framework of electoral procedures and will begin to join in with our collective efforts to create an alternative list of voters. Incidentally, this is one of the very rare cases where I’d like to admit that I’m wrong…

The opposition leader made the remarks during a debate on Saturday with Yabloko bureau member Aleksei Melnikov on whether oppositionists should boycott or participate in the elections.

During the debate, Kasparov accused Yabloko of cooperating with the Kremlin and not acting as a truly oppositionist party.

“Just like [Communist Party leader Gennady] Zyuganov and [LDPR leader Vladimir] Zhirinovsky, you pretend that you’re an alternative. The Kremlin has financed you for eight years. The Kremlin agrees to your candidate lists. You know all of this,” Kasparov said.

In response to the question of where Yabloko gets its funding, Melnikov insisted that the party has “one source – citizens and business. And we’ve done this work for many years. Nine percent is from business donations,” he said.

Melnikov called on Russians to go out to the polls on the December 4 election day, while Kasparov called on potential voters to go out into the streets and protest against the fact that the elections are sure to be neither free nor fair.

Kasparov was among a group of leading oppositionists to sign a declaration in early October to boycott the Duma elections. As the declaration reads: “Under the current conditions, we feel that the December 4 parliamentary elections will be illegitimate. We call on citizens to boycott these shameful ‘elections’ in any rational way.”

According to Gorbachev, “I, for example, feel that after Putin went through two terms as president and now another term as prime minister that, I think, this story of a duumvirate, while it meets constitutional requirements, nevertheless essentially discredits democratic principles.”

In the former president’s opinion, the development of democracy in Russia is impossible while the people in charge of the country are not its actual leaders and do not defend the people’s interests.

Gorbachev believes that Russia’s leader should respect the rights of the people instead of the rights of “corporations.”

He also expressed doubt that upcoming parliamentary elections would be free and fair. Gorbachev labeled the ruling regime as “authoritarian” and said that the country can expect to have “to seriously fight for the rehabilitation of democratic principles, fair elections, and independent courts.”

He also said that voters should use the forthcoming elections as an opportunity to speak out against the current regime by voting against United Russia.

As the BBC also pointed out, other world leaders are less than thrilled at the idea of Putin taking up a third term as Russian president. Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that Putin’s decision “makes a bit of a mockery of the electoral process” and was “unfortunate.”

Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri Peskov, called Rice’s remarks “disrespectful.”

“The leading party and majority expect the opposition to behave calmly and not rock the boat,” Putin said at the closing State Duma plenary session on Wednesday. “But this is a vain wish: that’s why the opposition exists, so that the leading party holds on stronger to the steering wheel.”

“We have many undefined and risky factors ahead of us, and in the midst of a storm, a tempest, a crisis, it’s very important that the whole team works in harmony, so that the boat doesn’t capsize,” he added.

Elections for representatives to the Russian State Duma are scheduled for December 4. Only seven political parties have been officially registered by the Justice Department, which allows them to field candidates. Numerous incidents of pre-election fraud have already been noted by monitors. Members of the opposition are staging a boycott of the “dishonest” elections and calling for Russians to go out into the streets and protest on December 4.

On Novopushkinsky Square, two activists holding an ongoing anti-governmental picket dubbed “Putin Will Be Executed” were arrested for supposedly “violating public order by holding either a meeting, rally, demonstration, march or picket,” an offense punishable by a fine from 500 to 2000 rubles (16 to 65 USD).

However, according to detained oppositionist Stanislav Posdnyakov, the pair had documents showing that the city had granted them permission to hold a picket at that time and place with up to ten participants. They plan to file suit against the officers involved.

Police had not detained any members of a previous picket under the same campaign a day before. A third action is planned for Thursday.

Another eleven activists were arrested the same day in front of Moscow’s Olympic stadium, where the band DDT was set to play a concert later in the evening.

According to Solidarity co-leader Nadezhda Mityushkina, the arrestees had been passing out leaflets protesting the unfairness of upcoming parliamentary elections on December 4 and instructing voters on how to ruin their ballots in protest. The goal of the campaign, which the activists are calling “Vote Against Them All,” is to have seven percent of voters cast their ballots against all candidates, thus passing the threshold needed by political parties to hold seats in the State Duma.

Mityushkina said that the arresting officers would not explain on what basis the activists were being detained. She personally was released after warning that she planned to file a complaint against them.

Among the activists who were not so lucky, all hailing from Solidarity, were Elena Bukvareva, Mark Galperin, Dmitry Monakhov, Artem Bystrov, Galina Shashanova and others. The group was brought to a police station and also charged with supposedly violating public order.

The arrests come on the heels of a new set of poll numbers for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party showing a nine-point drop in support in just one week, from 60 percent to 51 percent. In some regions, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, their numbers are even lower (29 and 31 percent, respectively). Among other questionable measures being taken to boost support for the reigning party is a racy television commercial calling for young people to “do it together” in voting booths on December 4.

“It’s a sign of the ineffectiveness of the system of government on the whole when, in order to resolve a basic question, one needs to appeal to the president, governmental representative or governor of a large region,” he said.

He also complained that “governors find out about decisions made by the government from the media – decisions that concern them personally, not things about what the socio-political course is going to be like over the next ten years or about international decisions, but about concrete economic decisions,” Medvedev stressed.

“The authorities have become alienated from one another,” he went on. “Even the governors, who I speak to often – they’re also falling out of the global flow of communication.”

“This means that our structures are bad; they don’t work,” Medvedev said in sum.

The comments come after the president’s recent announcement that he would not be running for reelection in March 2012, and that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would be running in his stead. Moreover, the two admitted that they had already agreed on this course of action at the beginning of Medvedev’s presidency in 2008.

Over the course of his tenure, Medvedev has often made liberal-spirited statements that project an image of progressive leadership and contrast with Putin’s more overtly authoritarian sensibilities. While analysts have long clashed over whether the president’s sentiments actually have any bearing on state policy, the revelation that he was never intended to remain in office longer than four years gives credence to the view that they were never much more than show.

Approximately 200 people participated in the rally, which is held regularly on the 12th of every month to provide a forum for Russians to express their collective discontent with government authorities. The protesters hailed from a variety of opposition and civil rights movements, including the Moscow Council, the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights, For Human Rights, the Left Front, the Moscow Workers Council, groups of automobile owners, environmental activists, and others.

Gathered near the Kremlin on Teatralnaya Square, the group chanted anti-government slogans such as “it’s time to change the government,” “Russia without Putin,” “it’s time to change course,” and “fictional elections are illegal,” the latter representing protesters’ current main grievance. Several leading activists, including Sergei Udaltsov, Lev Ponomarev, and Konstantin Kosyakin, gave speeches calling for a boycott of December parliamentary elections and telling people to go out into the streets in a sign of protest.

Police had thoroughly cordoned off Teatralnaya Square, with rows of officers lining the path from the square to the nearby metro in order to prevent participants from moving outside of their designated area of protest. The event had been sanctioned by Moscow city authorities, but an application to hold a subsequent march to the presidential administration building was turned down on the basis that it would cause traffic jams. However, Kosyakin proposed that the group march anyway, in spite of the ban.

The would-be marchers were immediately halted by police, with four arrested in total. As of Wednesday night, the activists were still in police holding.

A total of nine Day of Wrath protests have been declared unlawful by Moscow city authorities and cracked down upon between 2010 and 2011. Today’s was the first to be granted sanction in a long time, the ban on the march notwithstanding.

Following a Day of Wrath protest this past August, organizers announced that they were giving government authorities a month to organize a meeting between members of the country’s top leadership and themselves to discuss the demands of participants in detail. The meeting, however, never took place.