Vladimir Putin's annual live video link with the nation has been postponed by a week and will take place on December 4, according to our information. Just like last year, the "Conversation with Vladimir Putin" will be conducted by Rossiya TV Channel. Live links will be established with eight communities. Particular attention will be paid to the single-industry cities of Pikalyovo and Togliatti. The prime minister will also talk with the people of Sayanogorsk. One of the key topics will be the development of the Russian automotive industry.
The video link was to take place on Thursday. However, the prime minister's schedule had to be changed because of the law on equal access to the media for all parliamentary parties. Under the law, if the balance of air time between the four Duma parties is upset government channels must compensate the time to the parties that appeared less often than their opponents on television within a month.
Last Saturday the United Russia Congress was widely covered by government channels. Opposition parties have already demanded that the channels make up for all the time devoted to extensive coverage of United Russia's big event. In other words, if Vladimir Putin's video link, which will be transmitted by the state channel, was held on Thursday, TV companies would have to compensate the CPRF, the LDPR and Just Russia for the time spent to cover the United Russia Congress and the video link with the party's leader. That would obviously have been in excess of the quota.
Previously two channels, channel 1 and Rossiya, took part in preparing the video link. Last year that tradition was broken. The programme was broadcast by Rossiya alone. The government channel will be responsible for the prime minister's communication with the people this year as well. No matter that it is also covered by the law on equal access of parliamentary parties to the media. It would be logical to have a non-governmental channel, for example, Channel 1, do the broadcast. That would have preempted complaints on the part of United Russia opponents. A source in television circles said this option was rejected because of the continuing economic crisis: "A video link with the prime minister is a costly event. Channel 1 could hardly afford to do it single-handed."
This is not the only reason why the video link was postponed. Putin is due to visit France at the end of the week. One item on his agenda is talks with the management of the French auto giant Renault. If they are successful and the prime minister prevails upon the company to invest in AvtoVAZ and share its technologies, it would give him a trump card on the eve of the video link, says Dmitry Badovsky, Deputy Director of the Social Systems Institute.
In addition to the submissions already accumulated at Vladimir Putin's regional reception offices, Russians will be able to file their questions to the prime minister by sending SMS messages or writing to a special website. The integrated information processing centre will start working early next week. Not that the prime minister will ignore the appeals that have been filed with the party's reception offices. In fact there are to be some video links with these offices. Many of them have been refurbished and spruced up in time for the video link.
Badovsky believes that there are several reasons why the authorities decided not to confine themselves to citizens' appeals to the reception offices. On the one hand, the law on equal access of parties to the media has been a factor: "The video link tries to distance itself from the party format to avoid antagonising political opponents. It is Putin's personal video link in which he combines the role of the prime minister and the party leader, the leader of confidence and public opinion." Another reason is the millions of calls to the hotline that provide grounds for some good sociological analysis to assess people's reaction to the situation in the country," Badovsky says.
The eight cities chosen are the cities with the largest number of problems. For example, there will be a video link with Pikalyovo, which would be very timely because at the end of last week the management of Bazel Company warned that the factory could stop again. In early June the prime minister personally came to Pikalyovo to resolve the situation, now he will have a chance to mediate in the live video link format. Another port of call will be Togliatti, and the AvtoVAZ plant to which the Prime Minister hopes to bring some good news from France.
Another venue will be Naberezhniye Chelny where the prime minister yesterday launched the production of diesel engines at a Russian-American enterprise, Cummins Kama. This is thought to be a milestone event in the Russian automotive industry: for the first time in 35 years a new production of modern diesel engines for trucks has been created in Russia. The live video link will begin in the Far East, most probably in Vladivostok, the scene of riots by motorists last winter. A new line for the assembly of Korean cars by the Sollers plant will be opened there early next week.
The prime minister will also talk with the citizens of Sayanogorsk where a disaster at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station took place last August. As in previous years, Putin may be asked to act as Father Christmas and answer a call from some little girl from Buryatia who would ask the prime minister for a dress for a princess or a Christmas tree.
Elina Bilevskaya
