Russia needs fair elections: Alexei Kudrin

     Deputy Head of the Government Alexei Kudrin said that Russia suffered from weak governance and rule of law, and the economy was still far too dependent on oil and gas revenues.

          

     Also he said the 2011 parliamentary and 2012 presidential elections needed to be “just and fair” and involve “all the leading political forces and representatives of society” to ensure broad support for economic reforms. It means that the Deputy Head of the Government admitted that all previous elections in Russia were unfair.

          

     As we still remember, President Dmitry Medvedev gave a pre-election speech in 2008 calling for a crackdown on corruption, stronger property rights and independent courts. It’s clear that little progress has been made on those issues.

          

     "Rather than abiding by the rules, we live as we please and rely on winks and nudges," Mr. Kudrin said. "We have a very weak system of governance."

          

     “We have some private companies which are closer to the government and the state, than other private companies — that is, they use administrative support,” he said, according to the official transcript. "Questions of mergers and acquisitions, access to resources are frequently decided in the offices of officials". It means that Finance Minister acknowledged defeat President Medvedev’s struggle against corruption as complete because economic advantages in Russia are still granted based on relationships with government officials.

          

     In a lengthy speech that touched on many aspects of the Russian economy, Mr. Kudrin reported the third annual drop in foreign direct investment— down to $12 billion to $14 billion from a high point of $27 billion.  "Even in my wildest dreams I did not imagine that we would increase military spending in such a way", Mr. Kudrin said, adding that the rise in such spending had led to an increase in overall budget spending of 1.5 percent of gross domestic product.

          

     It was an unusual criticism coming from a man who has worked closely with Vladimir Putin for more than two decades. The last time Mr. Kudrin ventured so publicly into the political realm was a year ago, when during a television interview he said he no longer associated himself with United Russia, the ruling party, which Mr. Putin leads.

The 2010 Autumn Election Campaign Review

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          In our previous Review we analyzed results of the 2010 winter election campaign and described basic methods of falsification of election results (through voting at home, absentee voting and rewriting of final protocols of votes counting). We focused primary attention on suspicious disproportions of results of the 2007 parliamentary elections in comparison with results of previous elections, so now we know in what regions elections were rigged especially extremely.

          In the current Review we're going to briefly analyze results of the 2010 autumn election campaign and see if there was any progress. Also we’ll continue analyzing results of the 2007 parliamentary elections because it’s very important on the threshold of the next parliamentary elections in December, 2011. 

          We'll assess last elections in accordance with the Methodology of the Organization of American States. The OAS methodology to evaluate elections takes as its starting point a definition of the concept of democratic elections. The concept of democratic elections is defined in such a way that elections are considered democratic when they fulfill four basic conditions. 

The 2010 Winter Election Campaign Review: Current Condition of the Russian Electoral System

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          The purpose of this Review is systematization of disembodied data appurtenant to elections held in Russia. It’s necessary to analyze:

          1. Trends of expression of popular will during the last few years at federal, regional and municipal levels;

          2. The most common methods of use of the so-called “administrative resource”, means of falsifications of election documents and ballot rigging; 

          3. Practice of trials on cases of election law violations.

          Firstly, this will make it possible for us to understand, what difficulties will an independent candidate or a party face during an election campaign; secondly, to define a set of arrangements of counteraction to the “administrative resource” which may help an oppositional candidate or a party to stand a better chance even in conditions of direct confrontation with local authorities; and, thirdly, to substantiate the point of view that elections which don’t arouse suspicion and indignation among the advanced part of the society and international observers, will accord with interests of the federal authorities of Russia. This can be achieved only by electing truly independent candidates and electoral associations at all levels, in the first place – at the federal level.

          It’s not our goal to repeat over and over again countless numbers of stories about how one or another candidate or a party wasn’t admitted to elections, was removed from an election campaign, or how their victory was stolen by gerrymandering or rigging elections. We will only show how such facts had affected composition of elective bodies, as well as reputation of institution of elections in people’s opinion.

Eastern Siberia and the Far East of Russia as Prospective Chinese Sources of Raw Materials

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          This Review is a logical continuation of «The Macroeconomic Review 2009: Crisis as Payback Time», the previous analytical material of the Constructive Project Foundation which demonstrated the following: 

          1. Financial crisis in Russia is systemic, has intrinsic sources and relates to the world financial crisis only indirectly;

          2. Systemic crisis of the Russian Federation is not coming to an end. On the contrary, it is going deep into economy, despite a brief respite given to the Government from the G20 antirecessionary measures; 

          3. The Government has insurmountable difficulty in combating systemic crisis, and sooner or later there shall be dramatic worsening of the socio-economic situation in the country and destabilization of the decaying political system. In case of maintenance of the current political system without relaxation of the political climate there shall appear a threat of breakdown of the Russian Federation. 

          Leaving aside the issue of prevention of such further developments (it’ll be considered in subsequent works of the Foundation), now it’s necessary to consider objectively the possible geopolitical consequences of the public administration disorganization and disintegration of the Russian Federation. 

          First of all, we have to assess rationally a probable degree of Chinese interest in the East Siberian and the Far Eastern raw materials sources. It will make it possible to predict actions of Chinese leadership if the Russian Federation will be close to collapse. So, it’s necessary to answer the following questions:

Russian Macroeconomic Review 2009: Crisis as Payback Time

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          The aim of this review is to provide a graphic demonstration of true factors of economic growth in the Russian Federation in 2000-2008. It will allow us to understand, why the financial crisis in Russia begun from September, 2008, firstly, was inevitable for our country, secondly, related to the world financial crisis indirectly and, thirdly, did not even come to an end. On the contrary, the crisis is deepening now. All diagrams in this review are based on the official statistics published by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the Federal Treasury and the Federal Statistic Service. 

Operation "White Storm". What happened on Manege Square on December, 11?

Photo by Ilya Varlamov

          Over 1,000 Moscow right-wing soccer fans and nationalists blocked a key city artery in protest at a killing of Egor Sviridov, a “Spartak” soccer fan who was shot in a fight with a group of men from the North Caucasus, a longstanding conflict, Muslim region in southern Russia.

          Protesters stopped traffic on Leningrad Avenue for half an hour, climbing on cars, lighting flares and chanting nationalistic slogans. Protesters demanded a full inquiry into the murder of Egor Sviridov. Their protest puts new pressure on race relations in the Russian capital. Many ethnic Russians accuse the authorities of trying to play down hate crimes against Russians.

          The death of Egor Sviridov generated a wave of anger on Russian soccer supporters’ and nationalists’ websites. They also accused the authorities of failing to catch the killer of another soccer supporter, Yury Volkov, who was stabbed to death in Moscow in July, during a fight with a group of Chechens.

Modernization and Political System of Russia

Russian Political System

          During the presidency of Vladimir Putin all reforms of political system were justified by the need to achieve “stability” and strengthen the “vertical of power”. The real objective, as far as we can judge, was to take control of politics in the country.

 

          In September, 2009 President Medvedev publicly put forward a new task – to start modernization in Russia. Meanwhile, modernization of any political system is impossible without ensuring regular replacement of a ruling top of a state by means of elections which should be held in compliance with international election standards. Evasion of this precondition (for example, through imitation of elections) makes the modernization unrealizable, but effectively provides retention of power in hands of an irremovable leader.       

What would happen if Steve Jobs was interviewed not in San Mateo but in Moscow?

By Alexander Molotnikov

www.forbes.ru

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.

Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

          Recently Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs was interviewed during the investigation of the case involving the iPhone 4 prototype. Stephen Wagstaffe, Chief Deputy District Attorney for San Mateo County, California, told that police are nearly finished with their investigation.

          In many states of the world questioning of a businessman by police means nothing more than just a questioning. Everyone does his job, and police try to catch swindlers and other criminals. However, in some countries any contact of a businessman with representatives of law-enforcement agencies often means much more and can lead to unexpected consequences. What could be in store for the distinguished Mr. Jobs, if criminal legislation of the USA would be unfriendly to businessmen, and “creative” interpretation of laws would exist among policemen?

          So, let’s start.

Russia Needs All-Volunteer Armed Force

          No wonder that the draft is regarded by many people in Russian society as something like serving deprivation of liberty for 1 year. Mass media often communicate information about outrageous facts that show disgraceful attitude towards soldiers, as if they were dumb animals. Draftees often cannot receive proper medical aid. Violence of organized groups of privates who have served more than 6 months against younger draftees became the rule. Every year not less than 3000 soldiers desert from the Russian army and a number of suicides in it is more than in the armies of the NATO countries. The situation with human rights violations in the Russian army became worse when it was allowed to call up for military service previously convicted persons. In fact, hazing in the army is the same as hazing in a prison camp. I suppose that prison hierarchy has already been adapted to army conditions in Russia. The conditions, in fact, are the same: one can be put into prison or be drafted against his own free will; both convicts and draftees are infamous and forced to do something what they don’t want to do and draftees are unpaid at that. In 3 years from reducing the period of serving in the armed forces to 12 months, it became obvious that hazing in the Russian army cannot be eradicated in such way. If the period of serving will be reduced even to 1 month, then draftees who have served more than 2 weeks will scoff at draftees who served less than 2 weeks. By the way, it’s no coincidence that classrooms for first grades and senior grades are always placed in schools separately; it’s even advisable to place them onto different floors in order to restrict access. The problems are the same. So, it’s necessary to change the whole system. But there are some people who try to impede progress. 

About So-Called Experts as Representatives of the Intellectual Elite of Russia

         There are many self-appointed experts and professionals who appeared in Russia during the current decade. These people like discussing social-economic and political problems with a knowledgeable air. Generally, they are concentrated at so-called “Centers” or “Institutes” which are grown by leaps and bounds, specialize in systems analysis supposedly and usually consist of several average men (sometimes with academic degrees) who like to be hip to the latest world news and immediately react to them by their dilettantish comments. Numerous reputable-looking research papers and experts’ reports which are abound in irrelevant nitty-gritty details regularly come into being in the depths of such organizations under the high-sounding titles. Content of these research papers is as clear as day, but is plenty of pseudo-scientific words and therefore they are presented in an unintelligible form.

 

Short Review of the Opposition in Russia

          Short review of the present public policy in Russia will allow us to allocate the following representations about political structures which can be considered as an opposition.

          1) The official point of view is supported by mass media and wide range of experts and political scientists loyal to the ruling top. In accordance with this conception there are:

• intrasystem opposition presented at the Parliament by fractions of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and Just (or Fair) Russia;
  
  
• extraparliamentary intersystem opposition which includes all parties registered by the Ministry of Justice;
  
  
• non-systemic opposition consisting of not registered movements (Another Russia, National Assembly, United Civil Front, Solidarity, the Russian People's Democratic Union, the Left Front etc.)

          2) In accordance with the independent point of view registered parties cannot be oppositional at all. Any public association wih real signs of disloyality will be eliminated at the stage of registration and, of course, cannot be admitted to elections.

          First of all, we need to understand if one could consider the intrasystem opposition as a real opposition. For this purpose it’s required to analyse activity of parliamentary parties.

Opposition in Russia: not the Ghost of a Chance

Opposition is an organized group of persons that are united to oppose a government.

          

Efficiency of any oppositional organization is determined by successfulness of its only possible primary objective achieving – coming to a power in a democratic way to realize its own political program.

          

We can estimate efficiency of any oppositional organization by using three indicators. First, it is the level of public support of an organization. If public support is absent, it is convenient to explain such fact by counteraction of “a bloody regime”. Many leaders of current Russian opposition mask their unpopularity in such way especially in front of their sponsors abroad. Organizations headed by these people have the only possible objective - just to recept a next grant from an international NGO. Russian oppositional organizations habitually mislead foreign grantors by submitting falce reports about uncompromising activity in the area of freedom distribution and human rights protection. Such quasioppositional organizations consist of several tens of persons at best and are usually headed by public figures and former officials of 1990th years or even by inveterate liberals which are named by the people of Russia as “demschiza” (it means “democratic schizophrenic”). Their total approval rating is about 3-5 percent at best. An analysis of reasons why it has occurred is not a goal of this article. Now it is just necessary to realize fully that Russian people distrust the opposition. This fact should be taken into consideration by grantors, especially by international NGOs, because their money probably will be frittered away or even plundered.

The Constructive Project Foundation was established in Moscow

The Meeting of Founders of the Constructive Project Foundation took place in Moscow on November 13, 2009. The Meeting unanimously approved the Charter and elected the Management Board and the Board of Trustees of the Foundation.

The Meeting also approved the Phoenix as an emblem of the organization. This is a mythical bird with bright red and fiery plumage. A phoenix is usually represented in heraldry rising of a flame because it possesses ability to rise from the ashes. Such symbol of eternal renewal is especially topical for our disintegrated and vandalized country. Considering national specificity we have combined an image of the Phoenix with an image of a Firebird, the character of Russian national fairy tales, whose singing cures patients and returns sight to the blind. Russian society is affected by blindness and passivity indeed. An extreme individualization, unwillingness of everyone to defend even his own interests, unavailability to self-organizing and collective actions, self-isolation, unwillingness to take notice of obvious things and mortal fear of a state power are now typical for the Russians. 

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