The magic of subsequent exposure – Picture of the day – Kommersant

On the morning of March 22, Vladimir Churov passed away. In fact, he spent only nine years in big politics, but these were truly turning points in Russian history. It was during the period of Mr. Churov’s work as the chairman of the Central Election Commission that “operation” Successor “-2008” and the famous “castling” of 2011-2012 fell. As a result of which the “magician Churov” finally turned into one of the main symbols of “managed democracy” for a certain part of society.

Three memes have firmly merged with the name of Vladimir Churov in Russian politics: “Putin is always right”, “the magician Churov” and “146%”. Although he personally owns only the first of them: this is the famous “Churov’s first law”, which the newly elected chairman of the Central Executive Committee himself proclaimed his main rule of life. “Almost a magician” (with the proviso “that’s what some party leaders call you”) Mr. Churov was called in December 2011 by the then President Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting following the results of the elections to the State Duma – to which the head of the Central Executive Committee predictably joked with the movie quote “I’m just learning.” Well, neither Vladimir Churov nor even the CEC formally had anything to do with the notorious 146%: the results of seven parties in the elections to the State Duma-2011 in the Rostov region, shown in the form of a table on the night after the vote on the Rossiya 24 TV channel, were included in this amount ( TV people explained this by a technical failure, and according to Mr. Churov himself, some employee of the TV company deliberately changed the numbers).

Nevertheless, these three memes almost perfectly describe the basic principles that Mr. Churov strictly adhered to as chairman of the Central Election Commission. The first is unconditional devotion to Vladimir Putin, under whom the future head of the Central Executive Committee worked in the St. Petersburg mayor’s office in the first half of the 1990s. The second is the desire to implement the principles of political leadership at any cost, even if the “electoral magic” is subsequently exposed by numerous critics. And, finally, the willingness to give all the best in this work not even at 100%, but at all 146%, despite the attacks of opponents and reputational losses.

Vladimir Churov, at that time a little-known State Duma deputy from the Liberal Democratic Party, urged for “elected service” in the spring of 2007, in a very difficult period for the authorities. The end of the second term of Vladimir Putin was approaching, and rallies of his supporters were going around Russia, calling on the president to change the Constitution and stay for a third term. The Kremlin did not directly respond to these calls, but they have already begun “casting” for the role of a successor. At the same time, any of the possible options required impeccable legitimation through the electoral procedure, and this required a proven and 100% loyal chairman of the CEC.

Vladimir Churov became such a person. To delegate it to the CEC, the Duma had to quickly change the law, which required the members of the commission to have a higher legal education. Among the ten nominees of the State Duma and the Federation Council, the physicist Churov was the only non-lawyer, but this did not interfere with the new head of the Central Election Commission at all. As a result, he served two terms in this position, first ensuring a painless transfer of presidential power to Medvedev’s successor, and then the reverse “castling” of 2011-2012.

And although Mr. Churov cannot be called the “creator” of the modern Russian electoral system, he became, perhaps, the first chairman of the Central Executive Committee, under which this system began to work as a well-functioning and well-managed mechanism.

Another thing is that the methods by which this mechanism was controlled caused growing criticism from the opponents of the authorities. The first noticeable surge of discontent occurred in October 2009, when all opposition factions left a plenary meeting of the State Duma in protest against the “dishonest”, in their opinion, the results of the regional elections (by the way, the former associates of Mr. Churov in the Liberal Democratic Party were the first to leave the hall). And in the winter of 2011-2012, the call for the immediate resignation of the head of the CEC became one of the main demands of a whole series of mass rallies, the participants of which accused the authorities of falsifying the results of the Duma elections.

However, the Kremlin did not give up Vladimir Churov, and he calmly finished working until the end of his second presidential term. When it finally came to the planned resignation, she in March 2016 looked almost as iconic as the appointment once was. After all, Ella Pamfilova, who held the post of Commissioner for Human Rights before joining the CEC, symbolized the “new times”, when, thanks to the “Crimean consensus”, fierce political competition seemed to be replaced by “mutually beneficial inter-party cooperation”. And Mr. Churov, having received the “quiet” post of ambassador-at-large, returned to his usual “non-political” life. In which he was like Santa Claus, a good-natured man with a bushy gray beard, wrote popular science books for children and art-historical books for adults, was fond of photography and praised the monarchy, acknowledging, however, the actual impossibility of restoring it. He died five days after his 70th birthday, which he celebrated in a hospital ward after a massive heart attack. Farewell to Vladimir Churov will take place on March 24 at the federal memorial cemetery in Mytishchi.

Dmitry Kamyshev