22 June 2004 05:39
Ryzhkov as Yet Untainted by `Democrats`
According to the results of an opinion poll released last week, Unified Energy Systems CEO Anatoly Chubais is no
longer the most hated man in Russia. That honor has now gone to exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky. The analysts attribute
this change to Chubais' lower profile following the defeat of his party, the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, in the
parliamentary elections last December.
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SPS spent nearly 220 million rubles on the State Duma campaign, according to official figures released by the Central
Elections Commission. Only United Russia spent more -- over 250 million rubles. In other words, SPS sank $7.6 million
into a campaign that left them with no chance of success at the polls. It seems to me that if Chubais and the other SPS
leaders, Boris Nemtsov and Irina Khakamada, had just stayed home rather than campaign, they would have fared much better
on election day.
This conclusion provides serious food for thought concerning another high-profile liberal, Vladimir Ryzhkov, a Duma
deputy from the Altai territory.
A few months ago, Ryzhkov debated Lyudmila Narusova, widow of Anatoly Sobchak and a member of the Federation Council,
on NTV's political talk show "K Baryeru!" I don't remember what the topic was exactly, just that
Narusova defended President Vladimir Putin and that Ryzhkov was critical of him. Viewers of the show are invited to call
in and vote for one of the two contestants. On this occasion, Ryzhkov won by a mile.
"You're not going to believe this," a journalist friend told me the next day. "I called in and
voted for the first time. I just loved the way that Ryzhkov was going after Putin."
"You're going to laugh," I replied, "but I also voted for the first time. I just loved the way
Ryzhkov was laying into Narusova and, through her, into the whole democratic set."
Having exchanged views of the show, we drank a toast to the political future of Ryzhkov, a man who arouses such
varied expectations.
But why is a politician with such splendid potential constantly drawn into the company of the democratic
ne'er-do-wells? Lately he has joined the Committee of 2008 and co-founded Democratic Alternative, a club that
threatens to grow into a political party by 2007.
A "democrat" is someone who views Russia in much the same way that foreigners do. But while Russians
respect foreigners, they have little sympathy for homegrown knockoffs. Muscovites are just as unpopular on the whole.
And the worst sort of Muscovite is the one who moves here from the provinces. He quickly takes on the city
dweller's traditional arrogance and snobbery, but his inordinate pride at having made it in Moscow makes these
traits all the harder to bear.
Ryzhkov is pure SPS in his political views. And he has worked in Moscow since 1993. But until recently Ryzhkov was
not perceived as a "democrat" or a Muscovite. Statements that came across as cynical or merely shallow from
the lips of Khakamada or Nemtsov did not arouse such disgust when they were voiced by Ryzhkov.
If Ryzhkov cannot curb his evident desire to become a Muscovite, the "democrats" will undoubtedly be all
too happy to step in and bankroll him. But this would spell the end of a promising political career. Foreigners will
declare him the next last hope for Russian democracy, and ordinary Russians will write him off.
There is a way out of this dead end, at least in theory: The democrats could bankroll Ryzhkov and then quietly retire
into "monastic seclusion," as the prolific progressive journalist Yevgenia Albats put it in her farewell
article a few years ago. But this is just a theory.
Expecting our "democrats" to sacrifice their own egos in the name of democracy is completely
unrealistic.
Alexei Pankin is the editor of Sreda, a magazine for media professionals. [www.sreda-mag.ru]
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[The Moscow Times] |
RUSSIA IN FACTS
