The outcome of last Sunday's Russian parliamentary elections was not a surprise. Of 11 parties contesting seats, only four managed to clear the 7 per cent barrier necessary to be represented in the State Duma. The party of power, United Russia, scooped over 60 per cent of the vote and will continue to dominate the national legislature.
The poll has been subjected to vicious criticism in the Western media as unfair and rigged. CNN and other major networks have relied heavily on so-called expert opinion from Garry Kasparov, who labelled these elections a farce.
Snappy sound bites in fluent English from a celebrity chess-player turned politician whose appeal among the Russian electorate is close to zero have substituted for serious analysis based on facts.
In reality, this campaign was no worse and perhaps somewhat better than Russia's previous experiences with electoral democracy. Certainly there were many irregularities, but Russian voters had a genuine choice and the ultimate result accurately reflected the popularity of various parties.
The 1996 presidential elections were much worse, when the ruling oligarchy, with the blessing of and support from the West, orchestrated a win for a highly unpopular and corrupt Boris Yeltsin.
If the Sunday poll was passable from the procedural point of view, it did, however, reveal a tremendous weakness in Russia's substantive democracy. It lacks strong institutions such as ideological parties, and checks and balances between different branches of power.
United Russia gained a landslide victory not because of its clear-cut program and good image, but because President Vladimir Putin fused his phenomenal personal popularity with its quest for MP seats.
Two interconnected questions need to be answered in the wake of the Duma elections: why did Putin associate himself so closely with United Russia, and what do he and United Russia plan to do between now and March 2008, when Putin will have to step down as President?
The predominant commentary in the West is that Putin will use United Russia's majority in the parliament to change the constitution and retain formal authority as an omnipotent chief executive.
This is hardly convincing. Had Putin wanted to keep the presidency for a third term he could have easily done so without going for such a complex charade through a popular referendum, for example.
It is conceivable that by linking himself to United Russia Putin will try to infuse it with his own distinct ideas and eventually turn it into a true ideological catch-all party with a power base separate from the state once he leaves presidency.
The difficulty here is that he has thus far failed to agree to lead United Russia's faction in the Duma or even to join it officially.
It is likely that Putin's hand could have been forced. As late as February 2007 he contemplated his future role in politics as the national leader without a formal post, a Russian Deng Xiaoping of sorts who would stay above the political fray. However, by mid-2007 signs of ferocious infighting emerged within his own Government.
In anticipation of the President's imminent departure, various clans and power groups began to jostle for succession. Power struggle affected even the security apparatus, and may have contributed to the resignation of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov in September.
Putin must have realised that his objective of smooth succession and continuity of the course was in jeopardy. Leading United Russia to victory and then making sure that a successor for presidency is nominated by the party and is accountable to it as a collective embodiment of the governing elite would accomplish such an objective.
This version of events is borne out by the reluctance with which Putin announced his support for United Russia in October 2007. He referred to it as less than an ideal structure, lacking in principles and ideology and filled with opportunists, but he concluded that nothing better was available.
The period from now until the March 2, 2008 presidential elections will provide fascinating insights into the prospects for democracy in Russia. Should the new Duma pass legislation creating a new post for Putin and transferring part of the vast presidential powers to it, this would be a sure sign of authoritarianism.
If United Russia does not change the political field and merely selects a candidate who will run for presidency alongside nominees from other parties, this would be a welcome development.
Regardless of what the future holds, the December 2 elections constituted a milestone event because for the first time all MPs were chosen from party lists. This is bound to have a salubrious effect on party formation and ideological debate.
One of the four parties in the new Duma, Just Russia, has already indicated that it would like to form an alliance with another left-wing faction, the Communists.
Disparate liberal and nationalist groups may follow suit, presenting a viable alternative to the party of power.
If this process persists, demagogues like Kasparov and his stunt-prone colleagues in Other Russia will move from the political fringe to oblivion.
Dr Kirill Nourzhanov is at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (The Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University.
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