Novaya Gazeta (Moscow): "Vlast with Yevgeny Kiselyov"
Transcript of a programme aired on march 13, 2009
I CONQUERED MOSCOW, BUT NOT SOCHI...
Main talking point
HOLIDAY ROMANCER
Elections of the mayors of large cities is one of the few areas of political life that has so far escaped a purge. The mayors are elected by universal secret ballot and you do not have to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures to be registered as a candidate. Instead you can make a money deposit.
Large cities are the weakest links in the vertical power structure. On March 1 United Russia lost the mayoral elections in Smolensk and elections for the Tver City Duma. As the crisis deepens opposition politicians have more opportunities and their chances are easier to parlay into votes in the course of compact city elections. Boris Nemtsov should try his luck in Sochi where he was born and reared and where he is quite popular.
Boris Nemtsov is a figure of national stature and the people in any city would be glad to have him as their mayor. For Nemtsov a victory in Sochi would be an achievement. Sochi is in fact the third most important city in Russia in political terms. The President's summer residence is there, it frequently hosts summit meetings and members of the Russian elite spend much time there. Besides, Sochi is to host the 2014 Olympic Games, Vladimir Putin's pet project, and for Nemtsov to run for the mayor of the Olympic capital would mean to challenge the country's most powerful politician.
An attempt to prevent Nemtsov's election by refusing to register him or by court cavils may reflect unfavourably on the authorities. Also, it is unclear what stand Dmitry Medvedev will take. Of course, the authorities can field against Nemtsov some prominent federal figure who is not implicated in unsavoury activities and has not yet left a footprint in Sochi whose citizens are fed up with the arbitrary acts of the federal authorities. But such a person is hard to find.
WINNERS AND LOSERS
Yelena SKRYNNIK has replaced Alexei Gordeyev as the Minister of Agriculture. She has long specialised in agriculture, is on excellent terms with Alexei Gordeyev and the man who gave her a leg up to get into the Government was First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov who is in charge of the agricultural complex.
The President of Bashkiria Murtaza Rakhimov is about to resign. The reports were denied by the Rakhimov administration, but it is hard to believe that Rakhimov will keep his job. After the scandalous dismissal of Yegor Stroyev, other regional heavyweights are in the line of fire, and Rakhimov's position has long been shaky.
Oleg DERIPASKA is among the week's winners. His company Russian Aluminum (RusAl) has had a $14 billion debt to foreign and Russian banks deferred. Mr Deripaska was saved from bankruptcy by a letter from the President's Executive Office in which the Kremlin indicated that it would not bankrupt RusAl. The moratorium will be in force until May 6. Everybody has agreed to it with the exception of Alfa-Bank which demands that the money be repaid on time.
Among the losers was Chairman of the United Russia Supreme Council Boris Gryzlov. His son Dmitry blames his setback in the municipal elections in St Petersburg on United Russia. Gryzlov Jr. said, for example, that the party was organising electoral fraud and in general was "behaving in an arrogant manner". True, United Russia promptly invited Dmitry Gryzlov to join the party, and he agreed.
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CONVERSATION WITH AN EXPERT. THE SOONER WE HIT ROCK BOTTOM THE SOONER WE WILL RECOVER
Today we talk with Konstantin Sonin, Professor at the Russian School of Economics.
Q: What do you think about Boris Nemtsov's nomination to run for Mayor of Sochi?
A: It came as a surprise, but everything will depend on Mr Nemtsov himself. I think it is critical for him to demonstrate that he is not challenging Putin. He is not running for President, he has to convince the people in Sochi that he would make a good mayor. I imagine what he might say to the people of Sochi. They need a champion, somebody who will help them to get a slice of the huge federal Olympic pie.
Q.: He speaks of nothing but the problems of Sochi, the construction of Olympic facilities, bureaucratic abuses, the environment, energy and he hardly ever speaks about Putin.
A.: That is fine. If Boris Nemtsov is ready to draw lessons from his past election campaigns he will try to listen to as many people in Sochi as possible, try to learn what their real worries are. And if he can become their voice it will help him to retain his place in the list of candidates in the Sochi election.
Q.: The other day Alexei Kudrin said that "Russia will not emerge from the crisis earlier than three years from now and the peak of the crisis will be at the end of this year and the beginning of the next". What can you say about that forecast?
A.: There are two scenarios. If industrial output and GDP continue to fall at the present rate we will hit rock bottom quickly and then begin to grow simply because we will have fallen too low. I don't think we can fall to a lower level than in 1998 because we are in some ways better off than in the 1990s (leaving aside the political system): businessmen, laws, people's habits. The second scenario is less catastrophic: the decline will slow down and we will be frozen in our present situation for a long time.
Alexei Kudrin's remarks strike me as very realistic and sober-minded, and on the other hand I cannot imagine that the Russian Government has the political resources to survive the scenario he predicts. I cannot think of a single instance in the last 100 years of Russian history when a worsening economic situation did not result at least in reshuffles in the political elite.
Q.: Addressing the Economic Forum in Krasnoyarsk Governor Alexander Khloponin said that even the strongest regions had only enough resources to last them for a month.
A.: Every governor, naturally, tends to exaggerate his own problems. The Krasnoyarsk Territory depends heavily on natural resources, it was growing rapidly in recent years, but now it was in some ways the first to be stricken. Next to Alexander Khloponin the Governor of the Kirov Region, Nikita Belykh, took the floor. He too is in a spot of trouble because he depends on federal subsidies. However, in recent years the Kirov Region has not witnessed such a massive growth, so it cannot experience such a sharp slump as the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
Q.: Alexei Levinson of Levada Centre wrote this week that since Vladimir Putin came to power the number of market economy advocates has been shrinking while the liberals outnumber the pro-Soviet managers only among the leadership and among young people. You were the moderator at the Youth Forum in Krasnoyarsk. What are the sentiments in that segment of society?
A.: I have the impression that young people are thinking in terms of government interference to solve the current problems. This is not surprising. Our generation is used to thinking that free market ideas may be extremely popular. But that essentially was the popularity of Reagan and Thatcher whereas historically the advocates of the free market have always been in the minority. The majority have always thought that people should unite and move forward together. In Russia most people support government interference into economy, in any case in the course of public discussion. But that does not make the Soviet economic model effective and if some have forgotten that lesson, life will administer a crude reminder to them.
Q.: You once wrote that the jailing of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev in 2005 to some extent determined the official economic policy. What can be the fallout from the new trial?
A.: To my mind, the key point in the Yukos affair was the 2003 parliamentary election. Both Putin and Khodorkovsky were running a risk. At the time Khodorkovsky had not realized that the Russian population would support Mr Putin to the hilt and would not support the right-wing parties. The new Yukos trial has not been the subject of much public discussion and it looks like just an element of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's personal fate. So far the case has not had much political resonance and has not changed the attitudes of society and the political elite.
