© REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Ironically, even the liberal opposition has been calling on the Kremlin to introduce the state of emergency, but with no effect: Russia’s government continues its muted response to the virus that spreads across the country. Indecisiveness and confusion in the Kremlin has not only confirmed the inability of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s personalized system to effectively react to the unpredictable circumstances. We also see the true nature of Putin’s governance style: his attempts to avoid responsibility and his distancing from unpleasant problems. Instead of using the crisis to shift toward a more restrictive rule, Putin has chosen “wait and see” tactics. He even postponed the national vote that has to legitimize his indefinite rule which were supposed to take place on April 22.

The most likely explanation: an introduction of emergency rule in Russia would mean a reconfiguration of power within the Kremlin and new political regime that Putin apparently is not yet ready to accept. Putin’s hesitation and foot-dragging could be explained above all by the belief that Russia will escape the dramatic spread of virus. (On April 7, Russia officially had a total of 7,497 cases, with 58 fatalities, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.) The seriousness of the pandemic, often described as “just a form of influenza,” has been grossly underestimated. And the authorities hoped that Russia’s economy would not be affected dramatically because it is more isolated than those of Western countries. Also, the Kremlin has built a financial “nest egg” for rainy days, with foreign-exchange and gold reserves presently around $570 billion. The political establishment until recently persuaded itself that moderate measures against virus spill-over were enough.

In addition, there’s a Russian habit of concealing bad news from the top and of attempting to create a glossy image of reality. Putin’s plan to celebrate the 75th anniversary of victory in World War II—the preparation for the May 9 parade continues at full speed—also played their role in the Kremlin’s attempt to minimize the hazards of covid-19.

In his long-delayed address to nation on the coronavirus crisis on March 25, Putin decided to refrain from introducing stringent measures against the pandemic. He did not adopt adequate measures to support the population segments that are losing their jobs, small and medium businesses, and big companies that will suffer from the pandemic. The measures announced so far have been piecemeal and are lagging behind those introduced by other states. Russian observer Sergei Shelin, expressing the dominant mood in Moscow, wrote on March 27: “The president’s ‘anti-coronavirus package’ has been prepared in haste with reasonable, opportunistic, and even absurd measures mixed together… There’s been an atmosphere of irresponsibility and chaos.” One could add a total disrespect for the human health and life as well as a fear of undermining the optimistic picture of Russia produced by Kremlin propaganda. In comparison, the Russian measures look meager:  the United States has announced to spend a sum equivalent of 9 percent of its GDP to fight the pandemic, the United Kingdom 14 percent, and Germany more than 20 percent. In contrast, Russia will only use means equivalent to about 1.3 percent of its GDP.

Moscow’s Mayor: Crisis Fighter

A week ago, however, Moscow finally woke up to the grim reality: the pandemic has started its deadly marathon across Russia. On March 30, Russia sealed its borders. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin ordered an indefinite city-wide quarantine (the self-isolation order applies to all residents regardless of age). Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin imposed the same restrictions in Russia’s regions.  On March 31 Russian lawmakers swiftly passed legislation threatening severe punishment—including up to five years in prison—for people convicted of spreading false information about the coronavirus. The ever-bustling Russian capital has been suddenly transformed into a post-apocalyptic sight. Precious time had been lost, however.

Moreover, the Kremlin continued to take a back seat. As Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov announced on March 30, “The state of emergency is not called because all necessary measures are being undertaken.” It seems now that the Kremlin’s strategy is based on several components: achieving “herd immunity”; attempting to force business and the middle class to carry the financial burden; relying on the population’s self-isolation, controlled by the authorities. However, even pro-Kremlin analysts think this approach is not any more satisfactory.

On April 2, Putin again addresses the nation. But he offered only the extension of Russia’s nationwide “non-working week” until April 30. Moreover, the Kremlin delegated the decision-making power on anti-coronavirus measures to the regional authorities. It looked as if the Kremlin was more afraid of introducing tough quarantine measures than of the coronavirus itself.  As one of the regional officials commented, “They even try to avoid the word ‘quarantine’.”

The Absent Leader

Meanwhile, Putin continues to shy away from publicity. Moscow Mayor Sobyanin (and not Prime Minister Mishustin!) was designated the lead figure organizing the coronavirus defense (Putin gave him the job of heading a special working group in the State Council for combatting the pandemic). But the state apparatus and society at large continue to wait for the Kremlin to define the mechanisms of fighting the virus. Having no definite agenda the police in the Moscow region introduced the curfew and then stopped it.

The speculation is that Mishustin and Sobyanin are hoping to use this crisis as a springboard if not to the status of Putin’s “successor” than at a minimum to that of his “number two.” However, the Russian system of personalized power has no place for the role of “successor” who could undermine the omnipotence of the only national leader. Meanwhile, the Russian system oriented toward solving bureaucratic tasks demonstrates its inefficiency in an emergency situation. It can  crack down on the protests, but is unable to tackle national disasters. It is quite a paradox: an authoritarian regime unable to successfully implement authoritarian measures!

Already, Putin’s popularity has fallen victim to the pandemic. Only 48 percent of respondents supported the idea of “Putin forever” in a Levada poll at the end of March, while 47 percent disagreed with this. Every second respondent preferred “a rotation of the authorities and the emergence of the new leaders”; only 37 percent of respondents opted for “stability and the same politicians.” Given that already a quarter of the population has to struggle to feed itself, there is much potential for disaffection growing for which there are no legal channels of articulation. The fight of millions left without jobs and financial help may well create “Titanic atmosphere” in Russia, pregnant with mass social turmoil.

Formidable Challenges

Russia will follow likely follow the Chinese pattern of restricting the freedom of information. However, the Russian system is lacking a uniting idea, basically relying on predatory clans. With Putin’s authority fading, there will be serious difficulties securing societal obedience even under threat of repression.

Systemic conundrums have become apparent, too. Putin will have to think about how to revive Russia’s ravaged economy. He will also have to balance Russia’s domestic insulation with its participation in the global politics, which he is eager to continue. Putin will try to return to the international scene as the responsible leader accepted by the West, and not only by China. Of course, in case of domestic disorder he may try to switch to the real “fortress Russia” mode. But this move will hardly be supported by the part of the Russian elite that has become globalized and personally integrated into the West.

The challenges Russia is facing are formidable. Depleted health care systems, corrupted authorities, an atomized and demoralized society, the state’s inability to help the most vulnerable segments of society—all that mean that Russia is moving toward an existential crisis. How Russia will respond to it will form its future destiny.

This article is based on a DGAP Study Group: Russia presentation delivered on April 7, 2020.

The post Russia’s Coronavirus Drama appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

There is much about American politics that is unusual to people in Europe, and this year’s bizarre presidential election is no exception. Europeans frequently criticize America’s two-party system, which gives a stranglehold on political office to only Democrats and Republicans.

There is only one country in Europe with a similar situation – Malta, where the intense political tribalism of its 450,000 citizens makes American political division look like child’s play. Every other European country has at least three major parties. Why should a nation as large and diverse as the United States have only two?

In reality, there are various strains of political thought in America. Both parties are made up of ideological coalitions, and tensions within them have been brought to the boiling point by the 2016 election.

Donald Trump’s win shocked Democrats and Republicans alike. Both party establishments are looking weaker than ever before. The Democrats are leaderless and adrift, completely shut out of power. The Republicans may now control every lever of government, but the party establishment appears to be primed for an inevitable conflict with their President Trump that could tear the party apart.

Not since the mid-19th century has America been so ripe for a fundamental shake-up of its political landscape.

Shotgun Wedding

The Republican leadership – embodied in House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – has embraced Trump since his shock win in the early hours of November 9. But they weren’t always singing this tune. Just a week earlier, it appeared that both men had abandoned Trump, with Ryan even refusing to talk about him publicly. Neither Trump nor his voters will forget that.

In the final weeks of the campaign, the Republican establishment was vilified by Trump at his rallies, and audiences booed when they heard the party mentioned. Meanwhile, the party leadership’s on-again, off-again support for the candidate and their fawning overtures after he won have disgusted moderate Republicans. In short, the brand is now toxic to both moderates and populists within the party.

So how long will the uneasy embrace between the more moderate congressional Republicans and the president last? It’s not just about optics. There are now fundamental and irreconcilable policy differences within the party. Republicans have traditionally been pro-free trade and hawkish US involvement in foreign interventions. Trump has said he wants to scrap global trade agreements and end America’s role as the world’s policeman. Despite winning the overwhelming support of evangelicals, Trump does not share their obsession with social issues like abortion or gay marriage. His vice president, Mike Pence, does.

If and when the Republican congressional leadership has to block President Trump on an issue, the traditional and populist wings of the party may be pitted against on another.

A logical outcome might be for two parties to emerge from the ashes of internal Republican conflict, with two new names: a center-right party in the mold of Angela Merkel’s CDU in Germany, and a far-right party in the mold of Marine Le Pen’s Front National in France.

The new center-right party would attract about half of sitting Republican lawmakers, but it would probably attract only about twenty percent of Republican voters. For 25 years now, the party has pursued a policy of bolstering its socially conservative and populist base while alienating its fiscally conservative wing.

There are few moderate voters left in the Republican Party at this point, as became evident in voting during the Republican primary. Over the past 15 years many of the former Republican moderates have become independents, and others have become Democratic voters.

Democrats in Disarray

The Democratic Party, pulled to the right by Bill Clinton’s New Democrats movement in the 1990s, has provided a natural home for many of these fiscal conservatives. But they are now in an uncomfortable union with the party’s progressives.

Bill Clinton remade the Democrats into a center-right party and he passed the mantle on to Barack Obama, who has also governed as a largely center to center-right president. Today’s Democratic politicians have more in common with British Conservatives than British Labour, for example. If Democrats joined the European Parliament, they might sit with the European People’s Party, or possibly the ALDE group of European Liberals. They certainly wouldn’t comfortably align with Europe’s center-left Socialists & Democrats group.

Bill Clinton’s Democratic makeover left a lot of people on the left of the party feeling unrepresented and taken for granted. This year, that wing flocked to Bernie Sanders, and they flocked with a vengeance. There couldn’t have been a more perfect foe against which to vent their rage – the wife of the man who transformed the Democrats into a centrist party. This explains the incredible level of vitriol against Hillary Clinton during the primary and beyond. It is the American left’s residual rage against a family that has robbed them of a political home.

A Democratic Tea Party?

Clinton’s loss has led to inevitable finger-pointing from Sanders supporters, who insist their candidate would have been able to defeat Trump. Both Clinton and Sanders supporters have been left angry and confused. The anti-Trump protests seen across the US in the days after the election united these two camps. But soon it will be time to decide how to mount an effective opposition to the president.

There are two options: to repeat the Democrats’ response to the 2000 defeat, or to mirror the Republican response to their defeat in 2008. In the former model, Democrats would work with the new president as much as possible and try to move to the right to win over the alienated white working class.

In the latter model, the party members would take to the streets in protest – not just for a few days but for months and years. They would pressure Democrats in Congress to try to block everything put forward by the President – a strategy that could be used to actual effect if Democrats can win control of the Congress in the 2018 midterm elections.

Disagreement on which strategy to pursue seems inevitable, and it is likely to split leftist and moderate Democrats. If that split coincides with a split within the GOP, we could be entering unchartered territory.

If moderate Republicans come into conflict with the new president and are plotting ways to form a viable third party, it would make sense to look to moderate Democrats who haven’t gone along with a Tea Party resistance strategy.

Any new moderate GOP party would need to build its voter base quickly and cannot rely on attracting many registered Republican voters. They would have to go first to former Republicans who left the party after it drifted to the far-right. Next they could turn to independents. And finally, they could turn to moderate Democrats.

The result would be a three-party system that is more recognizable to Europeans: A center-left “Socialist” party (the rump Democrats), a center-right “Christian Democratic” party (former Republicans and Democrats joined together) and a far-right “nationalist” party (Tea Partiers/Trumpeters).

American Exceptionalism

All of this assumes that the American political system behaves rationally. But the world’s oldest democracy behaves in no such way. A three-party system would require coalition building to attain a majority in the Senate and House, something we haven’t seen in America in 180 years.

Such coalitions would have to be worked out not only at the federal level, but also in all fifty state legislatures. It would be a very new phenomenon for the US and could also bring about great political uncertainty. Expect entrenched interests to resist such a development at all costs.

Political scientists also point out that the two-party system arose in the US because of its winner-take-all electoral system. They say this situation is unlikely to change unless the voting system is changed. But this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. A winner-take-all system hasn’t stopped the UK from developing a three-party system, for instance.

The forces of stasis in America’s archaic governing institutions are strong, but they are under immense strain. Remaking the American political spectrum along a more European model would be nothing less than an earthquake – one that would likely have ramifications for the rest of the world as well.

It’s now or never. If America’s strange two-party system doesn’t buckle under the unprecedented chaos of this year’s election, it likely never will. For Europeans who are hoping for an American political spectrum that’s easier to understand and navigate, now is the time to hope for a change – and maybe even offer some advice.

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