The President's Address has
left a very strange impression. A jumble of men and horses on the battlefield,
as they say. He gives a rather negative appraisal of the heritage received from
his predecessor and vaguely dreams of smart technologies, even interplanetary
travel. He speaks about the ridiculous issue of time zones in Russia and
promises long-awaited tax relief for charity organisations. He claims that,
despite the real situation, we have an absolutely full-fledged political system
and even more... It seems the text was automatically compiled from the pieces of different
subjects.
However, despite the record
100-minute length, the Address misses many burning issues such as local
government, the law enforcement situation and media freedom. I do not even
mention the real mechanisms that would make the declared cosmically huge
objectives achievable. And the main thing, no direct address to the "M
generation," as Mikhail Khodorkovsky says, which is the only one able to make
the modernisation U-turn.
So is it another move of the
kind where all the steam goes for the hooting? If yes, do we need to prepare
that in 2012 Medvedev will, at the instigation of a new (new old?) president,
take up the post of Head of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation,
an honorable position for a professional lawyer?
Another option: Medvedev saw
his Address as the first step to enable his power with real force that he (and
we all) needs for the country's modernisation. There are some facts supporting
this assumption. Firstly, the growing number of the president's direct orders
with defined and not very distant deadlines.
Until January 15, 2010, the
government (V. Putin in charge) must:
- make proposals on a new
approval procedure for investment projects that would help make timely
decisions (within three or four months), taking into account the power of top
officials (heads of top executive bodies) of Russian constituent entities to
supervise this procedure and their responsibility for results.
Until February 1, 2010, the
government (V. Putin in charge) must:
- draft an action plan to
establish a financial system that would meet the requirements of innovative
development and economic modernisation;
- take additional measures to
support consumer lending and expansion of residential construction;
- take concrete measures to
stop waste of associated petroleum gas.
Until March 1, 2010, the
government (V. Putin in charge) must:
- draft regulations to improve
the quantity and quality of the state's presence in commercial activity, taking
into account the programme's completion until 2012;
- make proposals to the Russian
president on the procedure and deadlines for converting state corporations into
joint-stock companies working in the competitive environment, and also deadline
proposals for the life of other state corporations.
I cannot say anything about
time zone changes (no instructions have been given by the president yet) but
the abovementioned objectives, if successful, could make a good foundation for
a new economic direction. Next March, Medvedev and other experts will see if
the government is ready for such a challenge. And it will become clear whether Vladimir
Putin, who was assigned responsibility for all these achievements, will act as
his big boss wishes.
We should not, of course,
build sandcastles and believe that with this economic foundation the country will
start crawling out of the crisis. This measure is necessary but not sufficient.
Nothing will change unless a radical reform of the government is undertaken.
Medvedev mentioned nothing about it.
In any case, February and
March will be a kind of a landmark. Medvedev will have only two options,
depending on the suggestions of the government. Should the draft documents
really be what is now necessary to modernise the economy, he will have to have
the courage to modernise the political system as well, if he wants success.
Should the government (voluntarily or not) get off with some insignificant
runaround, the president will have to either replace his cabinet with a more
functional team or put up with the formality of his post, which will increase
chances of unexpected shock from which Russia risks failure to emerge as a
unified state.
Yevgeny Gontmakher, Doctor of
Economics, Professor
http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article/2009/11/20/219327
