Why Does Russia Hold Elections?

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Why Does Russia Hold Elections?

James Joyner | Monday, March 3, 2008

Anne Applebaum asks and answers an important question about the process by which Dmitry Medvedev was easily “elected” president of Russia but in which all the plausible opposition parties were ruled ineligible.

Why did anyone bother holding an election at all? Given that the inner circle of ex-KGB officers that controls the Kremlin also controls the country’s media, its legal system, its parliament, and its major companies, why do they need elections? Why didn’t Vladimir Putin just appoint Medvedev, or keep the presidency himself? The answer, I think, can lie only in the ruling clique’s fundamental insecurity, odd as that sounds. Though the denizens of the Kremlin do not, cannot, seriously fear Western military attack, they do still seem to fear Western-inspired popular discontent: public questioning of their personal wealth, public opposition to their power, political demonstrations of the sort that created the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. To stave off these things, they maintain the democratic rituals that give them a semblance of legitimacy.

Indeed, they maintained this pretense even in the days of the Soviet Union, when candidates were elected with 99.99 percent approval with 99 percent turnout.

It’s noteworthy that, by all indications, Putin and Medvedev are genuinely popular and it’s widely presumed that they would have won in open, fair elections. That we’ll never know, however, is a shame.

About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.

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