Todd Bishop
Protests against the disqualification (DQ) of the opposition city council election candidates were staged in Moscow for the fourth consecutive week. Officially approved demonstrations on Saturday (August 10th), according to the organizers, more than 50,000 people participated in the opposition campaign during the 2012 elections and in 2015 to commemorate the assassination of the late Russian opposition leader Nemtsov (Boris Nemtsov) The largest mass movement since the rally.
Official approval of demonstrators and peace participants
According to statistics from non-government organizations, the number of people detained on Saturday was about 100. The number is far lower than that of nearly 1,000 people in the same week last week. The total number of demonstrators arrested in recent months has exceeded 2,400 – and the arrest mainly occurred in the Ministry. Participants gathered in front of the demonstrators’ headquarters in Moscow’s presidential headquarters, and finally collided with the police who came to stop it.
The number of demonstrations was very large, but it was obviously more peaceful. The reason was that the Moscow government approved the demonstrations instead of directly banned as above on Saturday (August 2), forcing demonstrators to take a “walking” way to protest. This can be regarded as a goodwill performance of the Moscow government, and thus a good result.
The one-month demonstration came from the controversy over the independent candidacy of the September 8th City Council election. After many opposition candidates raised the signatures of about 5,000 people and crossed the threshold of the election, they were disqualified by the electoral authorities for “signature unclear” and “insignator’s address is incomplete”. The people are dissatisfied.
The government’s tough demonstrators are also tough
The demonstrations have been unsuccessful for a long time. The government also detained the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the famous lawyer and network red man Lyubov Sobol, to prevent the demonstration from appearing.
All candidates, such as the Communist Party of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, have asked the electoral authorities to re-examine the signatures of the opposition candidates and allow them to participate in the elections without responding.
At the same time, the Moscow authorities have prosecuted 11 arrested persons for 15 years of rioting, and even a couple who had brought their sons of the same age to participate in illegal gatherings to endanger the children or to lose the custody of the latter; The university has appealed to students not to participate in demonstrations. The financial and military status of some of the arrested demonstrators has also been questioned by the police or used for other prosecutions.
Such a tough approach has led some network reds who did not support the demonstrations to come forward, making the demonstrations on Saturday more powerful than before. Moreover, the demonstrations also spread to other big cities such as St. Petersburg, and gradually evolved into a campaign for political freedom in the country. The original dispute over the eligibility of the city council elections gradually became the background of the demonstration, not the main axis.
Although the current situation of the government and the people is still opposite, this step in Moscow’s permission for demonstrations has brought inspiration for the parties to resolve the crisis.
The importance of each step back
If the official only wants to suppress the demonstrations, even if the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the Germans, the United States and other “black hands” behind the demonstrations, the cause of the demonstrations turned a deaf ear, and the demonstrators in Moscow would only go with the official to a “sweet game”. The dilemma, the former requires more and more, and even evolved into an overall challenge to the Putin government, and the latter’s counter-measure will only become more and more intense. In the end, in the political situation in Russia, the demonstrators certainly lost to the regime. After all, Putin, whose popularity is expected to decline, still has nearly 70% of the people.
However, this is not a victory for the government, because the protests of the demonstrators and their sympathizers have not been resolved, they have only been suppressed, and if they have the opportunity, their outbreak will only be stronger than today.
With this example of “allowing demonstrations to make the demonstrations more peaceful,” the Moscow government should further seriously deal with the original controversy of the demonstrations – such as the criteria for providing the signature format of the candidates, and the appeals of the candidates to qualify for the election. Etc. – In addition, in order to restore social harmony, the government should be more tolerant of “walking” people who participate in illegal gatherings.
If the government can do this, the grievances represented by the demonstrators will be reduced. Moreover, from a strategic point of view, the Moscow City Council has no real power at all, and the dispute over the eligibility of the opposition is only a purely political arrogance.
However, if the official can make goodwill concessions, the demonstrators should also “see and accept”, instead of seeing a little “winning”, then “winning the pursuit” will require unlimited levels to the point where the official is totally unacceptable. .
After all, regardless of how the nationals of a country oppose each other, they must inevitably live together. In the domestic political and political disputes, different stakeholders must understand each other and work together to resolve them. If we only work hard through different methods, even if one party can benefit in the short term, the farthest will only lead to greater confrontation, and there will be no benefit to the country.
