Running for Office in Siberia: Part IV: History, Perspective and the Components of a Modern Campaign

Arm and Torso of Person in Brown Sweater Placing Paper Ballot into Ballot Box

Subject: Running for Office in Siberia: Part IV: History, Perspective and the Components of a Modern Campaign
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2015
From: Sarah Lindemann-Komarova <echosiberia@gmail.com>

Running for Office in Siberia
A series on the District #35 Election for Novosibirsk City Council

By Sarah Lindemann-Komarova
[Founder, Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Center 1995 – 2014. Helped to establish this as the hub for the first civil society development support network in the former Soviet Union.]

Running for Office in Siberia
A series on the District #35 Election for Novosibirsk City Council

By Sarah Lindemann-Komarova
[Founder, Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Center 1995 – 2014. Helped to establish this as the hub for the first civil society development support network in the former Soviet Union.]

Part IV: History, Perspective and the Components of a Modern Campaign

Article with pictures: medium.com/@ECHOSiberia/running-for-office-in-siberia-history-perspective-and-a-modern-campaign-93b69cc93d1c

As the campaign to represent District #35 in the Novosibirsk City Council heats up, it makes sense to add some perspective on this 23 year old democracy. In June 1992 I attended my first and last political party meeting in Russia. The democratic capitalist country of Russia was 6 months old when I joined 25 other people at a Democrats for Russia meeting. This was Yeltsin’s party or, the thing created to give the first president of Russia the veneer of a mechanism to replicate democracy. Not knowing this at the time, the meeting was disappointingly mellow and short. A brief discussion on whether to support the Petersburg or Moscow variant of referendum on land reforms and should the constitution be put to a vote. They went for the Petersburg option, finances was next on the agenda but first, a break for tea. The tea break lasted longer than the discussion. Finances began with the question “How do we live?”, a participant said something about looking into it and the meeting was adjourned.

Electoral politics did not improve as parties multiplied. By 1996 there were over 60 and many were single issue groups like the Beer Lovers Party. The foundation I helped to establish gave a grant to an NGO hoping to make sense of this for voters. The idea was to make a cheat sheet with basic positions like private property (for or against). It was the worst few months of the NGO activists post Gulag life as he searched for party platforms, opinions in newspapers, phone numbers, offices, any sign of life beyond registration as the election and the latest possible publication deadline drew near.

In the 90’s America was supporting activities targeted at strengthening parties and coalitions but my limited exposure indicated they were not very effective. The National Democratic Institute had a training program for coalitions but it was not available to Siberian NGOs because we lived in International Republican Institute (IRI) territory and they did not have a coalition program. A friend who had served as a local deputy attended an IRI seminar and told me the people conducting it were a little naïve, “I already knew everything they were teaching, like how to dress for a TV interview.” High priced western consultants called in to help national parties demonstrated a similar disconnect based on a TV ad for the “liberal” right of center SPS party. It featured three high profile leaders (Chubais, Nemtsov and Khakamada) associated with privatization and economic shock therapy wearing expensive looking clothes as they flew luxuriously in a private jet over a devastated post 1998 financial crash Russia chatting and laughing while tapping away on fancy lap-top computers. None of this scene was coherent, let alone accessible, to 99.9% of the people below. Whatever aspirational vision they thought they were conveying, if it were votes they were after and they wanted to feature some mode of transportation (a “Russia on the move” theme), the ad should have featured them drinking tea and listening to people in a platzcar (Russian train car with 36 bunks and no dividers). Although traveling in a regular coupe, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn understood this when he embarked on his 1994 return to Russia across country train trip and speaking tour. One of his stops was Akademgorodok where a standing room only group greeted him at the House of Scientists. In the 1999 parliamentary election SPS got 8.52% that was down to 4% in the next cycle.

In most regions the first decade of democracy was characterized by a Governor getting elected and staying “elected” establishing a fiefdom feel to democracy. For better or worse, in Novosibirsk the election of Governors was more tumultuous. This began when President Yeltsin found a way to kick out the Communist Governor and replace him with a more “liberal” guy. The Communist went on to become a banker until he made a comeback when the “liberal” guy was democratically voted out of office. The “liberal” guy went on to become a banker, the Communist achieved nothing and was challenged in the next election by the “liberal”, the “democratic” Mayor of Novosibirsk and a Vice Minister of Economics for the Russian Federation who was the first farmer in Novosibirsk to privatize his land in the early 90s . The “liberal” and the Communist lost and both went back to banking. In a runoff between the other two the Mayor won by a tiny margin and the Minister returned to Moscow.

The 90’s were equally confusing at the local level. The only security came in showing up every day at work regardless of the fact that you weren’t getting paid anymore and to huddle in kitchens at night talking and drinking tea with your small circle of friends and family. In this environment any action or reaction is as logical as any other. One of the English teachers at the University woke up one night at the sound of someone fidgeting with her lock. Face to face with a stranger she asked if he was a robber. He said “yes”, she invited him to have tea. During their tea party they discussed home security and he offered advice on where to find the best lock. Before leaving he used the bathroom. They said goodbye and in the morning Rosa noticed that a big bottle of shampoo, a treasure indeed, was missing.

This was Akademgorodok in February 1993 when Ruslan Khasbulatov, Speaker of the Russian Parliament, came to address a science conference. I was told later that preparations for the welcome by local government officials consisted primarily of discussing whether they should stuff goods in the stores and do repairs as they used to do when someone of that status came, or if this was no longer appropriate? Should things look good or bad? They left things as they were but it didn’t matter. Prior to the low-key speech by the embalmed looking Khasbulatov, came reports from various Academy of Science bigwigs. The head of medicine reported, “everything is awful”, head of agriculture, “everything is awful”, head of the Buryat Division, “everything is awful” and a sharp, impressive looking guy from Tomsk, “everything is awful”. Valentin Koptyug, the President of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences and an unapologetic socialist true believer, was the only one deviating from the theme with a proposal to create a Siberian scientific “techno-polis”. The futurama picture he painted seemed ludicrous amid the bleakest of backdrops, I could only think he was either a madman or fool.

The 2015 Akademgorodok where Natalia Pinus launched her campaign is home to a Technopark, considered one of the most effective innovation centers in Russia. It is also the place where cherished forest was destroyed despite protests and legal challenges to stop the construction of apartment buildings that trampled on all principles associated with this community’s development. These elite buildings are located on the Prospect named posthumously for Koptyug and are located in what is called the “Upper Zone”. Unemployment is relatively low, 5-6%, but if you cross the street from the new elite apartments, you will find retired scientific workers scraping by only thanks to their dachas. A 5 minute bus-ride will take you to micro-district “D” and Building Workers Street where working class and the pensioners who helped to build Upper Zone live and represent different priorities and interests. Nearby is micro-raion “Scha” that was initially built to accommodate the children who grew up in Upper Zone and didn’t want to leave and is now home to people with a range of backgrounds and bank accounts. Then there are the people who decided to abandon apartment building life and build homes in Kirov village on land that borders the Botanical Gardens. With no large institutional constituency, the challenge for Natalia was how to connect with as many of the 27,000 District voters as possible in the less than 2 months provided when the national government decided to move up the elections.

Any campaign begins with money. Natalia got hers from members of the Alumni Association of Novosibirsk State University, the same people who encouraged her to run in the United Russia Primary. Some of these people also serve as advisors but the final decision on everything is Natalia’s. This includes the slogan “I love Gorodok”, colors (green, red and black) and poster layout, although she asked for Facebook feedback on several poster options. There is an Internet site, http://n-pinus.ru/, and a newspaper that has published 2 editions with schedules, endorsements and other information. These are passed out at street meetings with citizens that have taken place on 10 evenings throughout the District. None of them have been well attended and at first the assumption was it was because a competitor was tearing down the announcements. By meeting three it was clear that whether it is rooted in cynicism, indifference or boredom, most people are not motivated to take advantage of an opportunity to talk to a political candidate. Still, she was learning a lot from the few and testing her ideas for a program. The program will be introduced in the third campaign newspaper and discussed at the open “Conference for Voter Priorities” she is organizing.

In America this may appear a traditional candidate slate of activities but here, if in volume alone, she outdid anything seen before. In addition to all of that, as Director of the Academgorodok Community Foundation, Natalia mobilized sponsors to support a “Summer Akadem” series of free outdoor cultural events. A string trio kicked off the season that several times a week dazzled the public with everything from science presentations to a retro 80’s childhood evening.

In the first few weeks of the campaign other candidates were mostly invisible beyond an occasional poster with a picture tacked to a building or newspaper handout. The removal of Natalia’s announcements was the first sign that she had upped the candidate ante. More evidence came when she arrived in Kirov Village to find another candidate had scheduled a meeting half an hour before hers. Yet another would-be deputy, from a construction company, started laying asphalt, filling in potholes, fixing entryways with workers wearing t-shirts promoting his candidacy. There is nothing she can do to compete with asphalt but when a billboard appeared Natalia, unable to finance one of her own, asked supporters to hang banners from their apartments.

On Monday August 24, the Alumni Association of Novosibirsk State University shoved the iceberg of democracy in Russia forward by inviting candidates to participate in a debate. The first of its kind in Akademgodorok, rare in the rest of the country, it would be broadcast live on local TV and streamed on-line. The moderator, a University graduate and respected director of a large advertising company, announced his participation on Facebook, “And suddenly, in the seemingly forever frozen and dead huddled little world political life! Look, look, she’s got a pulse! Teeth appeared on the EKG!”

Next week Part V: Campaign Substance: Candidates, Issues and the Debate.

Previous parts of the Series:

Part III: Becoming an Official Independent Candidate:

medium.com/@ECHOSiberia/running-for-office-in-siberia-becoming-an-official-candidate-4119419f30b

Part II: Next Generation

medium.com/@ECHOSiberia/running-for-office-in-siberia-959d59bf2737

Part I:

medium.com/@ECHOSiberia/running-for-office-in-siberia-7b426f574249

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