Vladimir Kara-Murza
The question of how to approach a rigged election—participate, with the risk of legitimizing the regime, or boycott, with the risk of becoming irrelevant—has dogged democratic movements for years. As December’s parliamentary poll approaches, the Russian opposition faces the same question. After the Justice Ministry’s decision to deny registration—and access to the ballot—to the pro-democracy Popular Freedom Party (PFP) led by Boris Nemtsov and Mikhail Kasyanov, it became clear that Russian voters will have, to put it mildly, a limited choice on December 4. The PFP became the ninth political party to be denied registration in the last three years; previous refuseniks included the nationalist Great Russia and the socialist United Labor Front. Only seven registered parties are eligible to participate in the poll, and even they face potential difficulties: during the last round of regional elections in March, Yabloko, a liberal party with a long history of opposition to Kremlin policies, had nearly half of its candidates disqualified prior to voting day.....
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