The “good cop, bad cop” trick must be one of the oldest in the book. Yet, unfailingly, this unsophisticated tactic continues to yield results, as illustrated by Russia’s ruling tandem of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev.
Mr. Medvedev, we are told, is a “reformer.” We are reminded that, unlike Mr. Putin, he never served in the KGB. That in the first (and last) competitive elections for the Soviet Parliament in 1989, he campaigned for pro-democracy leader Anatoly Sobchak. That during his own presidential campaign in 2008 he declared that “freedom is better than non-freedom” and committed to make the protection of civil liberties his “most important task” in the Kremlin.
Last week the world was treated to yet another example of Mr. Medvedev’s “liberalism.” By a vote of 444 to 0, the Russian Duma, the only parliament in the G-8 that happens to pass major decisions unanimously, approved the president’s proposal granting minor parties one (1) seat in regional legislatures if they receive 5 percent of the vote.
Like other examples of Kremlin “liberalism,” this measure is a farce. Changes in electoral law implemented by Mr. Putin and kept intact by Mr. Medvedev abolished single-member districts that permitted individual candidates to compete for parliamentary seats, and only allowed officially registered parties to submit nationwide lists. The new rules on party registration, in turn, ensured that only groups loyal to the Kremlin could receive a license on political activity. Former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov’s party, People for Democracy and Justice, and former Duma member Vladimir Ryzhkov’s Republican Party, to name just two examples, were denied registration. Solidarity, Russia’s main pro-democracy movement led by Boris Nemtsov, Garry Kasparov, and Vladimir Bukovsky, also lacks registration and access to the ballot. The only registered liberal party, Yabloko, has been disqualified from the March 14 regional elections—an indication of the true worth of Mr. Medvedev’s “thaw.” The only people benefiting from the president’s latest initiative are those from the Kremlin’s own pool of puppet political parties.
If Mr. Medvedev really did want to open up the electoral system, he wouldn’t have to re-invent the wheel. All he would need to do is annul the changes brought by his predecessor and return to the laws of the 1990s, when Russian parliaments—freely elected by voters from a wide variety of parties, coalitions, and candidates—represented the full spectrum of political views.
The “democratic reformer” has been in the Kremlin for two years. Yet political prisoners remain behind bars, television remains under government control and opposition rallies are still dispersed by police. In fact, Mr. Medvedev effected only two noticeable political changes, raising the presidential term from four years to six, and establishing the Interior Ministry’s “Center Eh” tasked with monitoring political dissent—the equivalent of the infamous Fifth Main Directorate of the Soviet KGB.
Dmitry Medvedev has a different style from Vladimir Putin. He speaks in a soft and intelligent manner. Unlike his mentor, he never talks of “wiping out the terrorists in the shithouse” or “cutting it off so that it never grows again.” But it is Mr. Medvedev’s record, not his words, which should serve as the only true measure of his presidency.
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