The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

by Masha Gessen

He took his ballot and stopped short of entering a booth. The first name and bio on the ballot were: BOGDANOV, ANDREI VLADIMIROVICH. Born in 1970, resident of Moscow. Place of work: Democratic Party of Russia, political party. Job title: Central Committee Chairman. Place of work: Solntsevo Municipal Council, City of Moscow. Job title: Deputy, part-time. Nominated by: self. Registered on the basis of voter signatures. Party affiliation: Democratic Party of Russia, party leader.1 This made Seryozha mad as the lieutenant had not, and his sweaty-headed boss had not, and all their made-up rules had not. This was outright mockery. An independent candidate—one who was not already a member of parliament—was required by new Putin-era laws to submit two million voter signatures in order to be registered as a candidate, with no more than fifty thousand signatures coming from any one region of the country.2 This demanded either a lot of money or a large nationwide grassroots network of activists—preferably both. Many people had tried that year. Garry Kasparov could not even convene the required public meeting of an initial group of supporters, because no one would rent him space for such a meeting, for any amount of money. Boris Nemtsov had dropped out of the race to help another candidate, former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, but Kasyanov’s signatures were arbitrarily thrown out.