​The magic of democracy

Last week the UK elected a new government and a new prime minister. Whatever we thought of the last bunch (and the results show most of us really didn’t think much of them at all), the majority of Conservative MPs who were unseated or lost their government posts were surprisingly magnanimous in defeat. Of particular note were the words of the outgoing Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, who retained his seat only by the narrowest of margins.

For those less familiar with British politics, Hunt was catapulted into the role of finance minister to steady the ship during the disastrous and short-lived premiership of Liz Truss, after she was forced to sacrifice her chosen chancellor and partner-in-crime, Kwasi Kwarteng. Hunt had previously been health minister from 2012-2018 and became so unpopular that many gave him a nickname that replaced the first letter of his surname with a C. However, he won over some of his detractors with these words, spoken at around 5am on Friday morning.

“A message to my children – who I sincerely hope are asleep now – this may seem like a tough day for our family as we move out of Downing Street, but it isn’t. We are incredibly lucky to live in a country where decisions like this are made not by bombs or bullets, but by thousands of ordinary citizens peacefully placing crosses in boxes on bits of paper. Brave Ukrainians are dying every day to defend their right to do what we did yesterday and we must never take that for granted. Don’t be sad, this is the magic of democracy”.

Indeed, Ukraine had been scheduled to hold its own presidential elections in March or April this year. But Kyiv enacted martial law on 24 February 2022 in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion and the country’s legal framework does not permit elections to be held when martial law is in effect. Even if the law had allowed elections to go ahead, this would have been impossible in practical terms, with millions of Ukrainians living abroad in fear for their safety and the threat of Russian missiles and bombs targeting busy polling stations.

In contrast, Russia did hold a presidential election back in March, which Vladimir Putin won by a landslide far eclipsing that of the British Labour Party. The difference, of course, is that one election was free and fair and the other wasn’t.

Reports of ballot-stuffing and coercion were widespread in Russia, while any genuine opposition candidates were barred. Just one, a former member of Russia’s state duma running on an anti-war platform, made it through the vetting process. Boris Nadezhdin was careful to play by the Kremlin’s rules, avoiding direct criticism of Putin. Russia-watchers had considered he might be allowed to remain on the ballot to create a semblance of competition, and to provide a narrative for Putin to rally against. But Nadezhdin proved too popular, with a hundred thousand Russians flocking to sign supporter lists for him, and was barred from standing on technical grounds just weeks before polling day.

Voting in Russia’s presidential election also took place in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, where there were reports of residents being forced to vote at gunpoint or amid threats of withholding medical care or other social benefits. Vadym Boychenko, the Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol, described how a woman “accompanied by two Chechen military men with machine guns” turned up at his neighbour’s apartment with a ballot box and made it clear that voting was not optional. At least 27 Ukrainians who refused to vote were arrested, according to human rights activists. A high turnout was important to Putin to help silence dissent and present himself as a legitimate and popular leader.

In Russia itself, thousands of citizens headed to the polling stations at midday as a form of protest inspired by the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in February in an Arctic prison, in an action called “noon against Putin”. Some visited Navalny’s grave in Moscow to symbolically cast their vote for him. In a country that punishes any form of anti-war criticism with a jail sentence – often accompanied by torture – even these mildest of protests were very risky and dozens were arrested.

Not only does the magic of democracy in the UK contrast sharply with the presidential election in Russia, but the gracious and orderly transfer of power is diametrically opposed to the last US presidential election, when Donald Trump refused to concede and attempted to overturn the result by inciting an insurgency in Washington DC. Five people died in the riot at the Capitol Building on 6 January 2021, as the country and the rest of the world looked on in horror. We can only hope that the upcoming US elections will run as smoothly as those in the UK.

​Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

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