Dmitry Kamyshev
The change of president was the highlight of domestic political life in Russia in 2008. Some people expected the new leader to stay the former course while others expected a drastic change of domestic and foreign policy. Both were proved wrong.
The outgoing year fell into two parts of unequal significance. The first half was devoted to laying down the legal framework of the new power structure, whose main features were already clear in late 2007, when Vladimir Putin named Dmitry Medvedev as his successor and agreed to serve as his Prime Minister. It was only in the second half of the year that the new President started shaping his own policy that blended new liberal ideas with new restrictions.
Thaws and frosts
A certain ambivalence in priorities could be observed even during the presidential election campaign.
On the one hand, it followed the "controlled democracy" pattern. As usual, the successor had powerful administrative support in the centre and in the regions. The national TV channels covered every move of the top candidate who, rather than taking a pre-election leave, continued to travel the country's highways and byways in his capacity as First Deputy Prime Minister, oblivious of what his travels were costing his campaign fund.
Former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who had no chance to win but would surely have slung a lot of mud at the authorities during his television campaign, was dropped from the list of candidates. Incidentally, there was no such purge of the list of candidates in 2004; even Irina Khakamada, former co-chairperson of the SPS, who had accused Putin of "high treason" in concealing the truth about the terrorist attack on the theatre on Dubrovka, was allowed to run.
On the other hand, Medvedev campaigned under the slogan "freedom is better than non-freedom", promised to tackle red tape and corruption, to overcome "legal nihilism", and to uproot nepotism. The successor looked very liberal and, unlike his predecessor, launched no attacks on internal or external enemies, leading some experts and politicians to suggest that a thaw was imminent.
However, the situation changed after the inauguration on May 7. The moment of truth was probably the August crisis in the Caucasus, during which President Medvedev behaved very much like Putin, first entering into a war with Georgia and then recognising the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. His actions put a stop to the talk about the new President's Western-style liberal orientation. Although Medvedev continued to come up with liberal initiatives on the domestic front, there was a growing gap between his words and official actions.
For instance, in his address to the Federal Assembly, the President condemns government bureaucracy as being "still guided by mistrust of the free man and free activity". Meanwhile, the Moscow authorities continue to ban the "Marches of Dissent" and crack down on those who defy the ban. The head of state promises to "humanise law and its enforcement" while at the same time, the Government submits amendments to the Criminal Code to the State Duma that broaden the concept of high treason and effectively make it possible to call anyone who has unauthorised contacts with foreigners a traitor. The President has expressed concern about the rights of "small parties representing the interests of a considerable number of people", while the Justice Ministry withholds registration of opposition groups under specious pretexts.
However, all these contradictions disappear if one assumes that the President's liberal rhetoric is addressed not to all citizens but only to those who fit into the system of "sovereign democracy". They will benefit from the "humanisation of the law", making it easier for them to be elected and appointed to high office, and will be allowed to become "free individuals" engaging in "free activities" (within the "controlled democracy", of course).
All the rest should gird themselves for a freeze, not a thaw: they will be squeezed out of legal politics, prosecuted as traitors while organisers will be put on trial for inciting mass unrest, which could mean anything, including any unauthorised rally that is dispersed by the police. The accused will be denied trial by jury, as distinct from murderers, rapists, and burglars, who apparently pose less of a threat to the state.
Loosening and tightening of screws
The 5th Duma, elected in late 2007, performed in a similar manner: liberal measures with regard to "friends" alternated with tough treatment of "aliens".
On the one hand, the Duma majority offered chairmanship of some committees to the opposition for the first time in five years, rejected amendments that would have allowed the media to be punished for libel and passed a number of laws cutting taxes. On the other hand, the Duma practically deprived citizens of the right to initiate referendums unsanctioned by the authorities, limited access of foreigners to strategic sectors in the economy and, even before the war with Georgia, urged the Kremlin and the White House to recognise the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The fifth Duma fully lived up to the reputation earned by the previous Duma of being the most docile Parliament. The Duma was in a hurry to react to all the key initiatives of the President and the Government, be it anti-crisis laws, abolition of trial by jury, or amendments to the Constitution to lengthen the terms of the President and the State Duma. By the same token, it held back the drafts that diverged from the official line.
An example in point is an amendment proposed by Pavel Krasheninnikov, the head of the Legislative Committee, which would count one day in pretrial detention as equal to a day-and-a-half in prison. If it were adopted, about 50,000 prisoners, including Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, convicted over the Yukos case, would have been free by now. However, the bill, already approved by the relevant committee and submitted to the Duma Council, mysteriously disappeared from the agenda and was swept under the rug.
As the year drew to a close, the Duma acquired a new function that is connected with the Medvedev-Putin ruling tandem. While the Duma majority did not dare to object to President Putin, United Russia occasionally corrects the young President Medvedev. One instance was the presidential package of anti-corruption documents to which the deputies introduced about 200 amendments, some of a fundamental nature (See the reference note on page 16).
True, Medvedev managed to uphold some of his proposals. At first, the deputies wanted to postpone the introduction of some key anti-corruption standards by a year, but after consultations with the Presidential Executive Office, they postponed only one: government officials will be required to fill income declarations for members of their family beginning in 2010, which gives them enough time to transfer some dubious items of their property to more distant relatives. What is indicative is the approach: while Putin's directives have always been taken by United Russia as final, Medvedev's initiatives can be the subjects of discussion.
Us and them
That some are more equal than others was highlighted by recent changes in the party system. The main priorities were laid down under President Putin: reducing the number of registered parties, a favourable regime for the parties already represented in the Duma and putting spokes in the wheels of opposition outside the Duma. President Medvedev stayed that course and was able to report some success by the end of 2008.
First, the outgoing year completed the formation of a system with fewer parties; of the 15 parties registered at the beginning of the year only six remained by December. The Right Cause, created out of the ruins of the SPS, is shortly to obtain registration. Thereafter, the number of parties is unlikely to increase. The services of the Justice Ministry and the Supreme Court were not enlisted to weed out the party flowerbed: decisions on merger, self-dissolution or transformation into non-governmental organisations were made by parties of their own accord. True, such decisions were typically made after the party in question faced serious problems (such as being regularly disqualified for regional elections or being jilted by sponsors), problems that miraculously disappeared after the "right" decision was made.
Secondly, the Justice Ministry fought off all attempts by the new organisations to muscle their way into the select company. Former Premier Mikhail Kasyanov was the pushiest of all, but he failed to get his party registered. The arguments that motivated the refusal to register his party have yet to be assessed by the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg.
Thirdly, the parties that have survived have been promised significant preferences. The President proposed to cut the membership requirement (although only six months ago, rumours persisted that it would be increased from 50,000 to 100,000), cut the number of signatures required for registration in elections, guarantee the Duma parties access to state-controlled media and give one or two seats in the State Duma to the parties that win between 5% and 7% of the votes.
The only fly in the ointment was Medvedev's intention to ban registration against a money deposit in elections of all levels. Opposition parties pinned hopes on the deposit to counter the widespread practice of election committees striking undesirable candidates off the list by declaring the lists of signatures to be invalid. If, however, the main distinction is between "us" and "them", that is not so important, since the screening agencies will by definition be favourably disposed towards parties that belong to the former group. However, the election committees will be free to apply the full severity of the law to those who do not fit into the new system.
The new and the old
The division into "us" and "them" was also taking place in regional politics. The year 2008 brought a record number of newly appointed regional governors: only two out of 12 appointed governors kept their jobs (83% of the governors were new, compared with the previous record of 44% in 2007). The two "old men" (head of the Transbaikal Territory Ravil Geniatulin and Magadan Governor Nikolai Dudov) were reappointed by Vladimir Putin when he was still President. The new President has not yet reappointed a single former governor, except perhaps the head of the Irkutsk Region, Igor Yesipovsky, who was appointed acting governor by Putin's decree in April 2008.
Another feature of the outgoing year was an early replacement of the governors, first approved under the new scheme by regional parliaments from amongst the candidates presented by the President. Irkutsk Governor Alexander Tishanin had been in his post for a little over three years and Amur Governor Nikolai Kolesov, for less than 18 months. Another regional leader to lose his job was President of Ingushetia and FSB General Murat Zyazikov, who was previously considered "untouchable". Although all of them officially resigned of their own accord, their resignations conveniently coincided with the new President's wish to get rid of inefficient governors and install in their places people who were personally loyal to him.
Those on the lists of friends, as in the case with political parties, have been promised a substantial loosening of screws. We are talking above all about the sensitive issues of delimitation of federal and regional property and optimisation of the number of territorial branches of the federal power bodies. The optimisation will now depend directly on the credibility of the governor: the more effective the governor, the fewer federal representatives will work on his territory.
Another initiative for the friends is that candidates for governor will be nominated by the party that wins the regional elections, without the participation of the presidential envoys to the federal districts. That initiative should reassure United Russia, which was probably surprised by some of Dmitry Medvedev's choices (for example, proposing former SPS leader Nikita Belykh as candidate for governor of the Kirov Region). Things will also be easier for the regional "heavyweights" who have long controlled the local branches of United Russia and can now look forward to being appointed for another term or at least to seeing the successors of their own choice to be appointed.
However, even these relaxations, which have yet to become law, do not seem to be enough for the regions. Last week, proposals were made to the effect that the President's and the Duma's terms have now been extended, similar extensions should be offered to the governors and regional assemblies. Considering the speed with which the regions approved the constitutional amendments (the necessary 56 approvals required for them to come into force were obtained by December 17), the Kremlin may deem that requirement acceptable. All it takes to implement it is an amendment to the Law On the General Principles of the Organisation of Legislative and Executive Bodies of State Power in the Constituent Entities of the Russian Federation", which limits the terms of governors and regional parliaments to five years, but that task will be addressed next year.
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December readings
In the last month of the autumn session, Duma deputies were too busy protecting the interests of the state and ordinary Russians to devote much time to themselves.
From the national point of view, the Duma's biggest achievement was the introduction of amendments to the Criminal, the Criminal Procedure codes and anti-terrorist laws, aimed at "more effective measures to prevent terrorism and step up the fight against it". To this end the Duma introduced longer prison sentences and abolished trial by jury for cases involving terrorism, espionage, mass unrest, and other articles of the Criminal Code "connected with the death of masses of people and a threat to the state" (for more detail, see Vlast of December 8). In spite of the protests of the left, who see the draft as threatening the opposition and backtracking from the President's plans for judiciary reform, all three readings of the amendments were approved within a week.
The Duma majority gave an equally cavalier treatment to the President's anti-corruption package, which passed the second reading on December 17. Among other things, to prevent "universal snitching", the provision that made it mandatory for bureaucrats to notify their superiors of all the "manifestations of corruption" by their colleagues has been dropped. Only the potential bribe-taker himself will be obliged to report an attempt to bribe him. At the same time, United Russia rejected the proposal to expand the list of a civil servant's family members who must declare their incomes (at present, it applies only to spouses and underage children).
For ordinary people, the deputies offered another raise of pensions and other social benefits. Under the law adopted on December 12 by March 1, 2009, the basic part of the labour old-age pension will be increased by 8.5% and by another 26.15% as of December 1. Similar increases will be granted to disabled peoplee and war veterans, those who survived the siege of Leningrad and suffered during the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident. This will also apply to the range of social benefits stipulated under the law on monetisation of benefits. True, the Communists condemned these measures as obviously insufficient, but they voted for the law "proceeding from the maxim that a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush".
The Duma spared a thought for the better-off representatives of the people and passed the second reading of the bills on reducing administrative pressure on business initiated by the President and introduced by the Government. In accordance with these documents, inspections of enterprises and private firms will be allowed only once every three years and each inspection will not last more than 20 days while the plan of inspections is to be posted on the Prosecutor General's website. The results of inspections conducted by a government agency with crude violations of the law will not be regarded as proof of violations by the entrepreneurs.
One should also mention the nine bills on changing the list of bank holidays. The drafters suggested to shift part of the New Year holiday to early May and to celebrate Russia Day not on June 12 but on April 12 (Cosmonautics Day), June 6 (Alexander Pushkin's birthday) or September 21 (the Day when the Rurikovich Dynasty became the Princes of Rus, in 862). However, the deputies roundly rejected all these amendments; so in 2009, the Russians will have the same holidays as in 2008.
The Duma members, however, did nothing in December to change their own position, unless of course one counts the adopted third reading of amendments to the Law On the Government, making it binding on the Cabinet to report annually to the State Duma. However, the first two readings of that bill were passed as early as mid-November along with the corresponding amendment to the Constitution, and have not been changed since then.
The Duma may have some more work to do on another document that has passed the third and final reading. Amendments to the Law On the Public Chamber expand the list of regulatory acts compliance with which the Chamber may check. The new list includes the laws that restrict citizens' freedom or put them in custody as well as confiscate their property. State and other agencies, upon the request of the Public Chamber, have to provide their statements regarding the laws that have attracted the Chamber's attention and the Duma will have to send to the Chamber for examination not only the bills but all the accompanying documents and materials.
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For a report on the activities of State Duma deputies in September, October, and November, see Vlast Nos. 38, 42, 47.
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THE MOST PROMINENT RUSSIAN EVENTS IN 2008 (mention rate) (%)
18.11 *
Operation to coerce Georgia into peace, August 7
5.65
Election of the Russian President, March 2
4.88
Russia's recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on August 26
2.76
Appointment of Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister, May 8
2.25
Collapse of the Russian stock market. The Government actively tackles the crisis, September 16
2.07
Dmitry Medvedev's proposal to amend the Constitution, November 5
2.07
The death of Patriarch Alexy II, December 5
2.98
Champions League Final in Moscow, May 21
1.83
The crash of an Aeroflot-Nord Airline's Boeing in Perm, September 14
*
The events are ranked by the number of times they are mentioned in the Russian media (by the percentage of the number of media materials on the event compared with the total number of media stories during the chosen period). In the event of accidents and disasters, the two-week period following the event was taken into account, for planned events (elections, introduction of a law), a week before and a week after the event were monitored. The measurements were taken based on the Integrum information agency's electronic library (40 national newspapers, magazines, TV and radio companies).