Last year's December elections to the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, have significantly shifted the balance of political forces in the country. The new Duma is dominated by parties that are openly hostile both to the president himself, and to his reform program.
The electoral victory of the Communist Party, which now controls over a third of votes in the Duma, can be viewed as a new stage in the integration of political forces in Russia. The political fragmentation which has made Russian politics extremely unstable and hard to forecast over the past five years appears to be coming to an end. The two preceding Russian parliaments - the one elected in the Soviet period and that of December 1993 - were much more fragmented, and thus easier for Yeltsin and his team to deal with, than the new Duma.
Despite the fact that the election results can and often have been interpreted as a serious blow to President Yeltsin's position, and consequently to the future of reform in Russia, it is too early to state that Russia will now be 'turning back'. What is absolutely clear is that following the elections significant changes will be made to the composition of the Russian government and its reform strategy. This, however, does not automatically presuppose a return to the old command system, but it does mean that both the strategy and mechanisms for implementing current reforms will be radically altered.
Under the modern Russian constitutional system most power is held by the president rather than the parliament. Given that, and also the upcoming presidential elections scheduled for June this year, it is highly unlikely that the major Russian political parties will attempt to implement any fundamental changes to current policies until after the June elections. Therefore, in the immediate future Russian political life is likely to be dominated by a de facto "peace agreement" between the opposition, on one hand, and the president and his government on the other, with both parties fully engaged in preparations for the major political battle in June.
These preparations will involve a number of moves from both sides aimed at winning the support of the electorate. For the opposition these moves are likely to include the following:
a) attempts to enter into electoral pacts with other pro-communist/nationalist parties and movements. However, given the ambitions of some prominent political leaders and the political, territorial and ethnic fragmentation of Russia, many of these attempts will be difficult to realise;
b) while the opposition will make moves towards establishing control of both houses of the parliament, it will probably try to abstain from nominating its candidates to the Russian government*. This would enable it to deny responsibility for the actions of the government, thereby allowing it much more freedom in political manoeuvring;
c) increased criticism of the government's social and economic policies, particularly during the March-May spring sowing campaign. The agricultural crisis is likely to be highlighted. The ultimate target of this criticism will be the president, who, in contradiction to earlier tactics, is now likely to be held personally responsible for all faults and errors in terms of socio-economic policy;
d) the opposition, particularly the communists, are unlikely to continue their previous tactic of attempting to impeach President Yeltsin, simply because new presidential elections are scheduled to take place anyway. However, if they feel that the President is trying to find grounds to postpone these elections or to concentrate too much power in his hands, they may renew their efforts. With the breakdown of the new Duma, these efforts could easily succeed;
e) populist pressures on the government from the Duma are likely to be stepped up. In the light of the forthcoming June elections, the government will probably follow a much softer line on budgetary discipline and financial stabilisation than it has in the past. As a result, a significant rise in inflation in Russia can be expected over the next 2-3 months.
President Yeltsin, on the other hand, will take measures (and in fact set about these on the day after the parliamentary elections) aimed at securing his present position and his prospects of victory in the June elections. Although his chances of being re-elected are currently very slim, it is still too early to write him off completely as a serious candidate. In any case, Yeltsin has little room to manoeuvre. His measurse may include the following:
a) an attempt to neutralise the opposition by appointing "conservative" ministers and promoting a "strong man" image both at home and abroad. This may win Yeltsin some support from the "conservative liberals", primarily the intelligentsia, but is unlikely to win over the majority of communist and nationalist supporters who blame him for the disintegration of the USSR, the decline of Russia's "greatness" and the ensuing social and economic collapse;
b) an increase of his personal hold over the power ministries and the KGB, even if this means the restoration of the latter. This is a process that Yeltsin began to set in motion after the October 1993 crisis. On some occasions (eg. the Chechnya crisis) this policy has made Yeltsin a captive of security decision-makers, but has hardly helped to win popularity. This policy would help to leave the way open for a potential future conservative president to tighten his grip over Russia's executive, and even to reinstate a dictatorship in Russia;
c) populism, which has always been a significant part of Yeltsin's political program, is likely to be stepped up during the coming months. But the Russian electorate no longer believes his promises of an economic upswing and an early end to hardships, at least not to the same degree that it trusted the Yeltsin of 1990-92. In order to win back support Yeltsin basically only has two options: (i) giving more money, including the return of delayed payments; and (ii) instituting tighter control, and even censorship, of the mass media, which will help to conceal Russia's continuing crisis and promote a rosy (or rosier?) picture of reality. Increased reserves in the Russian Central Bank might help Yeltsin's government to pay off some of its debts to the population, while controls over the press in Russia have already been effectively growing as of early to mid-1994;
d) Yeltsin will probably move to regain his position in what used to be his major support base: the Russian regional elites. The outcome is likely to be a dramatically increased emphasis on regional policy, with a possible series of visits to the regions (and disbursement of additional funding to some of the most important regions); reshuffling of his "regional representation" structures; frequent meetings with the chairman and members of the upper chamber of the parliament, the Federation Council**.
However, in promoting that policy, Yeltsin is certain to come up against the communists who, as the recent Duma elections indicate, have largely managed to re-install their candidates in the regions, capitalising upon the dissatisfaction of regional elites with Yeltsin's policies.
For Yeltsin and his associates, the chances of survival beyond the June presidential elections are very slim. As all recent opinion polls show, Yeltsin's over-all following has shrunk from the 70% mark of 3-4 years ago to a mere 8-15%. Although these figures should be treated with great caution, it is true that since August 1991 Yeltsin's administration has had very few successes to offer up to the electorate as justification of its political course. Socio-economic policy has generally failed; crime and corruption have reached unprecedented levels; living standards have fallen dramatically (military and security sector employees included), leaving the current leaders with a minimal popular political base and extremely unreliable power structures; and Yeltsin's foreign policy is criticised to great effect by the opposition as "mindless borrowing" and "the national humiliation" of "the great Russian people".
In this situation - ie. with very few chances of political survival for him or his entourage - there is a possibility, no matter how theoretical or distant it might seem, that Yeltsin and/or some of his closest aides may again attempt to secure their positions through unconstitutional means, such as postponing the presidential elections and dissolving the parliament after it resists this action. However, in the present situation, Yeltsin and his team would be unlikely to win much support among the power structures, which renders such a venture extremely risky.
Therefore, the most likely scenario at present is one in which the June elections take place as scheduled and an opposition candidate emerges as the new president of Russia. This will mean a lot of political manoeuvring in Russia during the coming five months, but the chances of yet another political crisis are nevertheless very low.
In other words, since the December elections the opposition has gained strength to the point where it can afford to wait another six months to remove the president through election, while the president himself is now in such a weak position that he is no longer capable of resisting pressure from the opposition, and indeed has no other option than to follow the trend. This uneasy equilibrium is likely to continue until the presidential elections. In the meantime, the only factor capable of breaking it would be the intervention of a powerful and united third force, which does not yet exist.
The results of the last Russian elections gave a strong boost to speculations about the end of reform in Russia and even a possible return to a command economy. However, it should be borne in mind that the Communist Party that won these elections is not the same party that used to run the Soviet Union. Over the past five years this party has significantly modified its ideology, economic program and tactics. At this stage the party's platform represents a strange mixture of theoretical Marxism, Western-style democratic ideals and nationalistic nostalgia for the lost "greatness" of the Russian people. Although its proclaimed policies are confused and contradictory, its economic declaration is unequivocally based on the recognition of the need for a mixed economy with strong state regulation.
Currently it looks as though the communists and their allies have the best chance of winning the coming presidential elections. This means that later this year Russia may well be ruled by a communist government and a communist-controlled parliament. Given the alternatives, this could well turn out to the best option for Russia. The only other realistic choices open to Russians are to be ruled either by politically weak "liberals" who are highly unpredictable in their policies and therefore unlikely to help Russia reach the stability it so desperately needs, or by ultra-nationalists who may help to stabilise the situation but who would be almost certain to push the country far away from all the democratic gains it has made in recent years.
Vladimir Tikhomirov
Acting Director, CRE-AS
ENDNOTES:
* Under the current Russian constitution the Prime Minister is nominated by the President and then has to be supported by the Duma. The Prime Minister then forms the Cabinet, the key members of which have to be approved by the Duma.
** The Federation Council was not elected on 17 December. According to the constitution, it consists of two members from each region of Russia: the heads of regional legislative and executive structures. In some areas the latter were re-elected on 17 December 1995, in other regions, such as Moscow, they will be re-elected in June 1996 (together with the president), but in most of Russia's regions the formal regional elections are due to take place in December 1996. This provision has actually led to very few changes in the composition of the Federation Council after the recent elections. In the previous parliament the upper chamber was the stronger supporter of the president, a situation that is likely to remain unchanged. This will make it significantly easier for Yeltsin to manipulate the parliament and to block unfavourable decisions passed by the Duma. Moreover, the issue of the formation of the upper chamber, which arose after the old Federation Council refused to adopt legislation passed by the former State Duma, was never settled by the parliament. The case is due to go before the Constitutional Court and will then be voted on again by the parliament. This uncertain situation provides Yeltsin with yet another lever to control the upper chamber, many of the deputies of which were directly appointed by the president to their regional posts.