A Putin Village

Moscow

One of the famous phrases with roots in Russian history that many people have at least heard of--even if they do not know the etymology of the term--is the "Potemkin Village." Although historians still argue as to the true nature and motivations of those who reported the event, the story is that the Russian prime minister of the time, Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin, erected elaborate facades to hide the hideously poor hovels and other unsightly buildings along her route--flanked by what appeared to be well-fed and smartly-dressed peasants--in order to create a fictitious image of prosperity during a 1787 visit to the Crimea by Empress Catherine II.

The famous Wikipedia website gives credence to the view that the stories of the Russian PM going to such extremes to fool the Empress are exaggerated and are now thought to have been fables spread by his political enemies, but admits that the term "Potemkin village" has "come to mean, especially in a political context, any hollow or false construct, physical or figurative, meant to hide an undesirable or potentially damaging situation."

One now wonders what will be the "construct" used to hide the true results of Sunday's parliamentary elections in Russia. When and if they become known they may be hard to reconcile with the actual voter turnout. But any revelations of such disparities may never see the light of day if the media coverage given to the elections thus far is any indicator. In the days leading up to the vote only two major stories could be heard or read in conventional western media outlets.

The first was the largely successful image creation of an overwhelming, insurmountable and irrepressible enthusiasm by a majority of the people for the United Russia party that is the bastion of Russian President Vladimir Putin's political support. This was symbolized by a monstrous billboard, the dimensions of which have not been seen since the height of the Soviet era, erected at Moscow's Manezh Square proclaiming that "Moscow is Voting For Putin." So large in fact that just a photo capturing just the last two words of this super-sized advert--"za Putina" (for Putin)--covered almost the entire above-the-fold half of the front page of last Friday's International Herald Tribune.

Russian pollsters report that 63.5 per cent of the population supports Putin staying in power. The most likely three successors to Putin--First Deputy Prime Ministers Sergei Ivanov and Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov--combined account for only a paltry 7.3 per cent of the polling results. The ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovskiy outpolls any one of them individually with 3.3 per cent of the respondents indicating him as their choice.

But the news behind these reports makes one wonder if the world has not been taken in by an incredibly successful and obfuscating media blitz by the Kremlin.

This weekend's Moscow Times reported that "United Russia's dominance on national airwaves ahead of Sunday's State Duma elections appears to be playing with people's minds eight percent of Russians polled in mid-November said they saw United Russia officials debating candidates from other parties, while 69 percent of those who watched the debates said they were impressed with the party's performance there, according to a poll released this week by the state-controlled VTsIOM polling agency."

The only problem with these polling results is that United Russia candidates did not participate in a single one of these debates.

This raises some serious questions about the integrity of the polling. We have all heard of political campaigns trying to spin the performance of a candidate after a debate to try and pump up polling numbers, but spinning a non-existent performance by a candidate that never appeared in a debate into a 69 percent approval rating is a miracle that not even all the most skillful James Carvilles of the world could hope to achieve--not even if they were capable of performing the famous Jedi Mind Trick. Moreover, (and I know this will come as a shock to all of you) VTsIOM are also the same state-controlled entity that conducted the polls that found 63.5 percent of the population supporting Putin staying in power beyond the constitutional limit of two terms. What a coincidence.

The defence by United Russia as to how more than two-thirds of the population could have approved of candidates debating who never actually appeared in a debate was beyond disingenuous. "We can't complain about how television channels are covering United Russia," said a campaign official on Thursday. And, we are told, "the official only spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media."