SPEAKING
FREELY How
to not lose Russia By Nicolai
N Petro
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
After Vladimir
Putin's decisive electoral victory in Russia's
presidential election many are asking whether the
"reset" in United States-Russian relations will
continue. I believe the answer to this question
hinges on America's official reaction to Putin's
re-election.
After protests that followed
last December's legislative elections, president
Dmitri Medvedev took steps to liberalize the
political system. These included the sanctioning
of mass public rallies, a proposal to restore the
election of regional governors, much easier
registration for
political parties, and the decision to create an
independent public television network.
Despite these initiatives, the unelected
political opposition - those who did not reach the
5% threshold for a seat in parliament - continue
to regard the entire Russian political system as
unfair, and declared weeks ago that they would
view presidential election as invalid regardless
of the outcome.
But this puts the
opposition in a bind. Having written off the
regime as unredeemable, their only recourse now is
to see it removed. Their strategy for doing so,
according to popular blogger Alexei Navalny, is to
hold continuous public rallies until the regime is
shamed into holding new elections. It is not at
all clear how new elections would help them,
however, since every poll shows that Putin is by
far the country's most popular political figure.
US officials therefore finds themselves on
the horns of a familiar dilemma. Should they
recognize an election whose outcome they clearly
dislike, or should they back the claims of a
marginal opposition whose claims are clearly
exaggerated? Put another way, should political
expediency trump adherence to democratic
principles?
Some will say that this is a
false choice. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
did as much when she publicly condemned last
December's Duma elections as "neither free nor
fair". But if such criticisms are not to appear
merely self-serving they must be balanced. They
cannot always condemn the government and cheer the
opposition. They must also publicly applaud the
government when it works to improve democracy, and
criticize the opposition when it takes positions
that are, to put it mildly, destructive of any
democratic consensus.
A good place to
start would be with a more balanced assessment of
the Russian presidential elections. Secretary
Clinton now has a rare opportunity to undo the
damage that she did in her hasty condemnation of
last December's Duma elections. A few simple words
of praise for the enormous efforts undertaken by
the Russian government in the past two months
would place Russian-American relations on a new
and much more positive trajectory.
Here
are just a few things she could cite:
The five registered candidates represent a
very broad spectrum of political views, from the
communist Gennady Zyuganov who wishes to
re-nationalize industry and isolate Russia from
the West, to the liberal Mikhail Prokhorov who
would like to break up existing national
monopolies and join the European Union. The only
candidate of any note who was denied registration
- social-democrat Grigory Yavlinsky - failed when
more than a quarter of his registration signatures
were revealed to be forgeries.
Each candidate received nine hours of free
prime time television and radio space (not
including four TV and radio channels that offered
addition free air time), and up to 18 hours of air
time for paid campaign ads. Surveys reveal that,
thanks to these and to a slew of televised
debates, the public was quite familiar with each
candidate's views.
Finally, in an effort at transparency as yet
unmatched in any other country, the election
process in all 91,400 polling stations was carried
live on the Internet. More than three million
visitors each watched an average of 50 minutes of
live feed. Democracy advocates should take note -
this innovation is cited by 28% of people as the
most important reason they trust these election
results. This is in addition to an estimated
200,000 registered election monitors from
opposition parties, some 700 international
election observers, and new, transparent ballot
boxes installed in Moscow and other cities. In
short, it would be very hard to argue that the
Russian government has not done everything
possible to ensure a free and fair election, and
the Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE) head of mission, Heidi Tagliavini,
pointedly refused to label them as not free or
unfair. If after these bona fide efforts the
official US reaction is still as condescendingly
dismissive as it was last December, most Russians
will assume that the real purpose of such
criticism is to undermine the legitimacy of
Putin's presidency. This will in turn cast a long
and very dark shadow over future relations at a
time when the United States needs Russia more than
ever.
A scant four years ago Russia's
perception of the United States probably would
have mattered little, since the United States saw
itself in the driver's seat in the relationship.
But the global economic crisis has turned many
traditional assumptions on their head, and there
are now many more risks to reverting to the open
hostility that characterized the final years of
the George W Bush presidency.
First,
Russia is much stronger economically. In 2011 it
was world's third-fastest growing major economy
and ended the year with a budget surplus. It
remains the world's leading oil and gas producer
at a time when, thanks to tensions in the Middle
East, prices show few signs of falling. Meanwhile,
because Europe has chosen to dither on signing
long-term energy contracts, Russia has diversified
its supply routes and reoriented some of them to
China. This not only improves the long term
balance of payments with her neighbor, but
solidifies a long term strategic re-orientation
toward Asia, largely at Europe's expense. Analysts
expect the total value of trade between these two
giants to exceed $100 billion in 2012.
Second, Russia now has a clear program for
regional partnership - the creation of a Eurasian
Economic Union. This will be very popular with
many in the former Soviet republics and, given
Europe's economic doldrums, will increasingly
appeal to financial elites. It took less than two
months after Putin announced his vision for four
of Russia's neighbors to sign on. Even the
perpetually ambivalent Ukrainian leadership has
said that it finds the concept interesting. So far
it has only signed on to the first step, the
Customs Union, with the stipulation that it
expects to receive "special treatment." But most
Ukrainian analysts see this as little more than a
negotiating stance. In the long term few doubt
what Ukraine's choice will be.
Third, the
"BRICS" (Brazil, Russian, India, China, and South
Africa) is no longer just a random assortment of
states known for their high economic growth.
Largely at Russia's initiative these nations have
begun to coordinate their foreign policies and
promote multipolar global initiatives. In the
future each will try to use its economic and
political clout to promote regional stability, and
to challenge the Western led model of
modernization.
Fourth, the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) now depends on Russia's
good will for its war effort in Afghanistan. As
relations with Pakistan have soured, NATO has
shifted as much as 70% of its transport of
supplies for Afghanistan through the northern
supply route that goes through Russia. It is even
planning to set up a new transit hub for Central
Asia in the Russian city of Ulyanovsk. Putting
this relationship at risk undermines the entire
Afghan war effort.
Finally, with Russia's
admission into the World Trade Organization this
summer, Russia will have the legal means to end
discriminatory practices against large scale
Russian investments. Countries that do not end
such practices can expect a flurry of legal
challenges. As Russian capital enters more and
more global markets we can also expect the Moscow
stock market, already the seventh largest in the
world, to become increasingly dynamic, raising
Moscow's expectations of becoming Eurasia's
leading financial and business center.
Each of these challenges holds
opportunities as well as risks for the US. The
opportunity exists for a truly equal partnership
to emerge, but it would require the current
administration to set aside its propensity for
moralism and respect the choice of the Russian
people. The risk in not doing so is that the US,
and the West in general, will become increasingly
irrelevant to Russia and its long-term global
strategy.
Nicolai N Petro,
professor of international politics at the
University of Rhode Island, served as the US State
Department's special assistant for policy on the
Soviet Union under President George HW Bush.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
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