Non-system opposition

In modern Russian political terminology, the non-system opposition or non-systemic opposition (Russian: внесистемная оппозиция) are oppositional forces which operate outside of the official political establishment. Alternatively, the systemic opposition operates in the form of registered political parties.[1][2]

There are two major reasons of the existence of the non-system opposition. First, the Russian Law on Political Parties was setting a high threshold for a political party to be registered for the participation in elections, the highest hurdle being the requirement to have at least 45,000 members.[1] Second, a number of activists, such as Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Bukovsky are in principle against registration, saying that the registration itself is a de facto a "vassal oath of allegiance to the authorities".[2]

The emergence of the "non-system" political activities (and the introduction of the term) followed the 2003 Duma elections notable for the new extremely restrictive law about political parties. The period of 2004-2012 witnessed waves of mass political actions organized by the opposition movements. The spectrum of political views of the non-system opposition is extremely broad, and attempts to create "suprapolitical" associations, such as The Other Russia, eventually failed.[3][4]

In 2012 Ivan Tyutrin and Aleksandr Lukyanov of Solidarnost movement wrote that the nonsystem/system dichotomy, i.e., based on a formal criterion, became outdated; the real dichotomy should be whether a political force is non-conformist or conformist with respect to Putinist political system. Their arguments are: radicalization of some "systemic opposition", decreased importance of registration during non-election time, expected alleviation of hurdles for registration by Dmitri Medvedev's reforms, and efforts of the current establishment to introduce discord into opposition. [2]

References

  1. 1 2 Russian opposition: inside or outside the system?, Grigorii Golosov, September 1, 2011 (retrieved February 8, 2015)
  2. 1 2 3 "Оппозиция: новая система координат", Иван Тютрин, Александр Лукьянов, February 24, 2012 (retrieved February 8, 2015)
  3. ↑ Aglaya Bolshakova, "Несистемно-бессистемная оппозиция", Osobaya Bukva, November 24, 2011 (retrieved September 27, 2016)
  4. ↑ "О тех, с кем и про кого говорил по телефону Немцов"

Further reading

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