The crisis has not yet changed the alignment of forces in the regions
The United Russia has won elections to the legislatures of all the nine regions held last Sunday. True, it performed less well than in the Duma elections in 2007 when the situation in the country was stable. The most noticeable drop of confidence in "the party of power" was at the municipal level. Experts attribute it to the fact that the crisis has loosened the link in people's minds between the images of United Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin. The opposition has failed to capitalise on the obvious social demand for left-wing ideas.
It looks as if the era of stability which came to an end in the rest of the world last year, still reigns in the Russian hinterland. The United Russia won comfortably in all the regions. The Communist Party (KPRF) came second with two or three times fewer votes. The Liberal Democrats (LDPR) came third almost everywhere, according to tentative results. A consolation prize went to United Russia's sparring partners: Sergei Mironov's А Just Russia barely made the 7% cut-off line required to gain seats.
The Communists claim that the "dirty technologies" of the 1990s were again in evidence in the electoral process. On the eve of the poll in the Arkhangelsk Region the newspaper Arkhangelsky Dozor carried an article claiming that the Communists wanted to "stage a bloodbath in Russia". According to First Deputy Chairman of the Communist Party's Central Committee, Ivan Melnikov, the "propaganda crisis" reduced the number of votes cast for United Russia compared with the 2007 Duma elections. For example, in the Arkhangelsk Region the number of votes cast for United Russia dropped from 56.72% to 51.8%, and in the Bryansk Region from 61.7% to 54%.
А Just Russia was every bit as active as the Communists in using the crisis to drive its campaign. "While the KPRF candidates were hollering that everything was horrible and everybody should be fired, our party proposed a constructive way out of the crisis. That does not go down so well with the electorate." That was how Duma deputy Ilya Ponomaryov of A Just Russia explained away his party's poor performance. Nevertheless, A Just Russia is on the whole pleased with its results.
"Surprisingly, voters in the regions still believe in the Medvedev-Putin tandem. Disenchantment has not yet assumed a mass character and the people are not prepared to revolt," says Olga Kryshtanovskaya, head of the Centre for the Study of the Elite at the RAS Sociology Institute. The authorities are aware of this. In an interview to Spanish journalists on March 1, Dmitry Medvedev said confidently that "the economic crisis will not substantially affect social stability".
Nevertheless, experts have noted early signs of a political and social crisis. A Levada Centre poll in February registered a 5% drop of the approval ratings both of the President and the Prime Minister. As elections have shown, protest so far is confined to the municipal level: United Russia universally failed to get its candidates elected as mayors. "These elections differ from the Duma elections. The idea that in voting against United Russia one is voting against Putin is gradually being eroded from popular consciousness," Alexei Makarkin, vice president of the Center of Political Technologies, concludes.
Crisis or no crisis, the power institutions are in place and working, says political scientist Konstantin Simonov explaining the success of United Russia. Besides, many Russians put the blame for the crisis on the US Administration and not on the Russian authorities. Mr Simonov also notes that the Russian opposition is weak: "Undoubtedly there is a demand in society for left-wing ideas, for greater government support in the context of the crisis. But no coherent proposals have come from the Communist Party."
Rustem Falyakhov