Voting On Russia’s Scorched Political Earth

Moscow has not seen political argument this heated in years. Then again, Moscow has not seen a mayoral election in a decade. And now that the election is two weeks away, arguments about whom to vote for — or, more specifically, whether or not to vote for the opposition activist Aleksei Navalny — have reached a fever pitch.
The problem with Navalny is that he is a man of his time. He was in his early 20s and still a student when Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999, the state had already taken over television channels and the electoral system virtually ceased to exist. In other words, Navalny has no experience living in a functioning — even an imperfectly functioning — democracy and no experience participating in a public political conversation.

He is a self-taught politician, and as a result many of his positions are poorly or primitively articulated. In campaign interviews, for example, he has stumbled over the heated issue of L.G.B.T. rights, first suggesting that gays and lesbians should march on a remote stadium, where they would not risk being exposed to violence, and reversing himself later. Most troubling have been his repeated nationalist and xenophobic statements. In a recent interview on Echo Moskvy radio, he promised to outlaw lezghinka, a traditional dance from the Caucasus, if he becomes mayor of Moscow. Such statements have caused some opposition activists, journalists and bloggers to say they cannot vote for Navalny.
Navalny will not become mayor of Moscow, of course, at least not as a result of the coming election. The acting mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, a member of the ruling United Russia party who enjoys a near-monopoly on the media, will likely commandeer more than half the vote. This is part of what makes the arguments about whether or not to vote for Navalny so heated and so difficult to resolve: It is not clear what voting in this election means.
This is not a fair election; the playing field is anything but level. Nor is there much trust in the vote count: The ruling party will claim victory no matter what. Even if Navalny won despite these handicaps, he cannot become mayor because he has been sentenced to five years in prison (deferred pending appeal), and by Russian law that makes him ineligible to be elected to office (unless he prevails on appeal).
If it’s not an election, then what is it? One group argues that it is a referendum on Russia’s future, a unique chance to say “no” to Putin’s continued rule by saying “yes” to one of his most outspoken and best-known opponents. In this construction, anyone who does not vote for Navalny is, in effect, voting for the Putin regime. The counterargument to that is, there must be a difference between saying “no” to Putin and saying that anyone who is not him is good. After all, Russia ended up with Putin in the first place because too many people bought the idea that anyone who wasn’t Boris Yeltsin was good.
Others say that voting for Navalny is like taking part in a protest in support of political prisoners. Navalny was sentenced on trumped charges, simply for being an opposition activist, and for that reason alone he deserves support. The counterargument to that is, participating in a political protest requires having a clear, principled political position. And that precludes some people from voting for a nationalist.
A third group believes that the authorities made a mistake by calling the Moscow election, underestimating its potential for destabilizing the political situation in Russia. Rocking the boat, they believe, is reason enough to vote for Navalny. The counterargument to that is, political battles should be fought with precise weapons, and taking action simply in the hope of provoking some remote, improbable consequences is reckless.
“I agree with most of my close friends, who categorically refuse to vote for him,” a 23-year-old Moscow sociologist wrote on her Facebook page recently, explaining why she is supporting Navalny. “They say I am making a big mistake, and they are probably right,” she explained, adding: “I have never in my life voted for anyone who could have won. I have never even voted for anyone whom I wanted to win. This is terribly irritating, but true.”
To me, this is what Moscow’s non-election election is: a snapshot of the Russian political landscape, a picture of what happens when you try to have an election on scorched political earth. It is also a glimpse of what will happen when the Putin regime does eventually end: Russia will be run by people who grew up without politics.

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Masha Gessen is a journalist in Moscow. Her next book, “Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot,” will be published in March.