The keynote of 2009 in Russia was, predictably, the fight against the economic crisis. The fight still continues, but this has hardly made any difference in the strength of the ruling tandem created a year ago, writes our observer, Dmitry Kamyshev.
A tandem without contradictions
The main political outcome of the outgoing year in Russia can safely be described as the final delimitation of scopes of authority within the ruling tandem created in the spring of 2008. The main factor behind that process was the fight against the global economic crisis. In the pre-crisis year of 2008, especially in the early months after the inauguration of the new President, Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir Putin occasionally intruded into the President's sphere of influence, until, immersed in the daily anti-crisis routine, he became more and more concerned with economics. Meanwhile, President Dmitry Medvedev, in accordance with the Constitution, concentrated on strategy, foreign policy and supervising the military and security agencies. Not surprisingly, in 2009, the President "reset" relations with the US, secured the rescue of the bulk carrier, Arctic Sea, from the hands of pirates, and purged the Federal Penal Enforcement Service (see for more information on page 22) . The Prime Minister, on the other hand, was calming the citizens of Pikalyovo, looking at the price tags in supermarkets, and securing French loans to bail out AvtoVAZ. And if somebody asked him questions that were not quite within the scope of his brief, as a rule, Putin pointedly emphasized that he fully agreed with the opinion expressed on the matter by "President Medvedev." Both leaders spoke in unison about the "2012 problem," promising not to compete, but to agree peaceably on who was the worthier of the two candidates in the next presidential election.
No longer under pressure to prove to the public that he was a genuine president, Mr Medvedev changed his demeanor as Head of State. While in 2008, many noted that he tried to imitate, perhaps subconsciously, Putin's movements, walk, and manner of speech, this happens far less frequently now. In any case, the President no longer vies with the Prime Minister in the field of vernacular phrases, having given up Putin's "folksy image" in favour of the "intellectual leader" to which, as a former law professor, he more comfortably conforms. But the current president has almost drawn level with his predecessor in terms of the number of catastrophes, terrorist attacks, and other high-profile events that have punctuated his time in office. Only, instead of Putin's "Black August," Medvedev has "Black Fridays," marking the two consecutive Fridays in which people died during the Neva Express train crash and the fire at the "Lame Horse "club in Perm. And before that, there was "Black Monday," when disaster struck at the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Power Station, an attempt was made on the life of Ingushetia's President Yunus-bek Yevkurov, lawyer Stanislav Markelov was murdered, and customers at a Moscow supermarket were massacred by police Major Yevsyukov.
However, unlike the sinking of the Kursk submarine in 2000, these tragedies did not lead to any accusations of either member of the tandem of improper behaviour. True, Mr Putin, who personally supervised the rescue operations, probably cut a more impressive figure in the media: TV viewers were certainly impressed by pictures of his visit to the stricken Hydroelectric Station and a night-time conference in Perm. For his part, Mr Medvedev demonstrated a new style of personnel policy that replaced Putin's tradition of deferred resignation: now bosses whose subordinates have botched their jobs can be dismissed hot on the heels of the incident and not months later.
As for domestic policy, the President is still committed to the formula "freedom for one's own men," which Vlast formulated from the results of 2008 (see No.50 of December 22). On the one hand, he proposed partial liberalization of the political system, announcing, in his address to the nation, measures to further broaden the rights of non-parliamentary parties and non-commercial organizations. The role of the presidential Human Rights Council has become more noticeable, and the current Kremlin boss heeds its opinion more readily than his predecessor. However, this liberalization still does not apply to the non-systemic opposition whose actions in 2009 were put down just as ruthlessly as in 2008. President Medvedev's initiative to replace the judicial election of the Constitutional Court Chairman with an appointment process headed by the Federation Council from amongst candidates selected by the President or the creation of a commission to combat falsification of history are further proof that if the Russians want new freedoms, they should not only behave themselves but think long and hard.
Unintended falsification
The regional elections in 2009 fetched up an interesting episode. The spring day when voting took place in many regions seemed to prove that in Russia, as in the rest of the world, the governing party's popularity tends to dip in times of crisis: in all the nine Russian regions that elected their parliaments on March 1, United Russia received far fewer votes than in the 2007 elections for the State Duma. True, United Russia won more votes than in the previous elections of local legislatures in 2003-2004, but then Vladimir Putin was not the leader of the Party. And secondly, in October 2008, the gains were much larger: nearly 26% on average compared with 19% in the March election. The governing party's average result in these campaigns also dropped from 66.5% in autumn to 58.6% in spring.
However, barely six months later, there was a groundswell of support for United Russia. In the October 11 elections in three Russian regions, the party won 62.1% of the votes on average, which was 28.1% more than in previous elections. And this despite the fact that the elections in Moscow were held in the middle of a crisis that continued for the second half of the year, while in the Mari Republic and the Tula Region, which also held elections that day, there was little to show even before the crisis and scant reason to be fond of the governing party.
This paradox (unless one falls back on the well-known thesis that "one cannot understand Russia with the brain") may have two explanations. The first version was proffered by United Russia itself: namely, that the voters have appreciated the party's valiant struggle against the crisis. The second, voiced by the opposition as well as independent observers, points to unprecedented vote-rigging in many regions, above all in Moscow.
President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin naturally held to the former opinion, declaring that the convincing victory scored by United Russia confirmed its high standing with the Russian public. The latter was espoused by some sociologists who discovered inexplicable discrepancies between the official results of the Moscow elections and the exit polls, as well as mathematicians who found that the official figures defied statistical laws.
The opposition turned to the law courts, which, of course, supported the party's position and turned away several lawsuits challenging the results of the Moscow vote. The only exception was the polling station where Yabloko leader Sergey Mitrokhin voted: the votes cast for Yabloko were eventually discovered at that polling station after a court delivered its ruling. However, there were no adverse consequences for the Election Committee (see p. 23).
Outside Moscow, there was one high-profile exception to the "Election Committee is always right" rule. A court in Derbent caused a sensation by canceling the results of a scandalous mayoral election that involved numerous irregularities, courageously ignoring the fact that the elections had been won by the incumbent mayor, a United Russia member (see Vlast, No.41 of October 19 and No.48 of December 7). True, the republican court may recall its verdict, but whether the Supreme Court of the RF will agree is a big question mark. One cannot rule out that the Supreme Court may overrule some decisions of the capital's courts as well. The principle of "freedom for one's own people" implies not only the unchallenged dominance of United Russia in the electoral process, but at least some account of the interests of the systemic opposition.
State Duma without an opposition
At first glance, the State Duma in 2009 was just the same failsafe machine that had rubber stamped the laws handed down from the top since 2003, the year in which the governing party won a constitutional majority for the first time. United Russia, as before, showed equal enthusiasm voting for any initiatives that had the approval of the Kremlin and the administrative government without giving much thought to whether these initiatives were liberal or "vertical"(more details on the work of the State Duma in December will be found on our fact sheet on p.19). However, there was a whiff of change in the State Duma in the outgoing year.
First, the three opposition parties in parliament more and more often formed a united front, something unheard of since the "confounded 1990s." True, opposition parties sometimes voted en bloc before, for example, when the annual federal budget was adopted. But this year, the result "315 for" (which means that a bill was supported only by United Russia) appeared on the Duma scoreboard fairly regularly. For example, almost all the votes on the ruling-party government's anti-crisis measures were "one-party votes" in spite of persuasion on the part of United Russia and the government's wish to present these plans as the result of a consensus among all political factions.
There seemed to be no practical relevance to the minority parties uniting: the KPRF, the LDPR and Just Russia, who between them have less than a third of the vote, were not in a position to block any legislation. But it proved to be enough to get their message across to the country's leadership, as the boycott of the plenary session by the three parties in October demonstrated (see Vlast, No.41 of October 19). Concerted action was of the essence: if, for example, Just Russia had not walked out, the effect of the boycott would have been greatly weakened. According to the rules of "controlled democracy," one opposition party in parliament was normal, but none - was somehow not right. Although it is too early yet to say what the minority (the "Mensheviks") had really achieved, some of their proposals have already been approved by the President.
Secondly, the smooth-running United Russia machine developed some technical glitches in the second half of 2009. True, the deputies are not to blame: one might say that the central processor started feeding contradictory commands to the State Duma, which led to a freeze of legislative software not designed to withstand such overloads. The first time it happened was during the discussion of controversial transport tax legislation, when United Russia first approved an increase of the base tax rate only to cancel that decision several days later (see Vlast, No.46 of November 23). The second hiccough occurred over the draft law "On the Basic Principles of State Regulation of Trade Activities," the second reading of which was postponed several times, although United Russia claimed that it was ready for adoption. Because in both cases lack of coordination between the Kremlin and the Government was to blame, it can be said that lawmaking is just about the only government sphere with some element of competition, if not between the members of the ruling tandem, at least between their teams.
Governors without a perspective
No signs of competition were apparent in the federal policy with regard to the regional leaders. The appointments and dismissals in 2009 were in line with the tradition established by the new President last year, which owes much to the still remembered Soviet principle that "no one is indispensable." First, Dmitry Medvedev continued his policy of appointing new governors: by mid-December he had appointed 12, of whom only four were incumbent. Although the result (a two-thirds rate of new appointments) is not quite as impressive as Medvedev's record last year (when all eight of his candidates were newcomers), it is almost double the "rotation rate" under Putin who replaced only 34% of the regional governors since the new appointment procedure was introduced.
Second, the new president did not hesitate to sack governors considered to be political heavyweights because they were long-serving or enjoyed a special relationship with the Kremlin. There were two such resignations last year (President of Ingushetia, Murat Zyazikov, and the head of the Stavropol Territory, Alexander Chernogorov) and three this year. While Viktor Ishayev, the governor of the Khabarovsk Territory, was promoted to become the President's Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District, two other Yeltsin-era governors, Yegor Stroyev in Orel and Eduard Rossel in Sverdlovsk regions, had to be content with being members of the Federation Council.
Thirdly and finally, four out of twelve governors (33%) resigned before their terms were up in 2009, seemingly of their own accord, which is another characteristic feature of Medvedev's personnel policy. Last year saw four such "voluntary" resignations (a rate of 50%), while eight governors were reappointed. Under Putin, the largest percentage of "voluntary" resignations was just 28% in 2007. At the same time, the new Head of State studiously avoided giving compromising grounds for resignation. Thus, Murmansk governor Yuri Yevdokimov was sacked "in accordance with his own wishes" and not for "losing credibility" (which he richly deserved after challenging the local United Russia chapter, see Vlast, No.6 of February 16).
It is worth noting that in 2009, Dmitry Medvedev also set some personal records. For example, he reappointed an incumbent governor for the first time (then President of Udmurtia, Alexander Volkov); he reappointed, also for the first time, a regional governor previously appointed by Putin (the head of Altai Territory, Alexander Karlin); and he sacked four regional leaders on a single day (see Vlast, No.7 of February 23). On the other hand, the President has become less sympathetic towards outsiders: while last year there were three out of eight new governors, this year there were only three out of twelve. Thus, the total number of outsiders among regional leaders under Medvedev was 30%, which is comparable to a similar indicator under Putin (32%). The Kremlin's change, in the middle of last year, of the selection process for gubernatorial candidates (in place of the President's envoys to the federal districts, the candidates are now nominated by the party that won the majority in the latest regional parliament elections) did not prove very successful. Within two months, the Kremlin decided that the 90 days allotted to the approval of candidates was far too long and suggested that the State Duma cut the duration in half. But, of course, the extent to which these maneuvers can strengthen political stability in the respective regions will not be known until 2010.
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December session
In the last month of the State Duma* autumn session, the deputies were so busy promoting the interests of the state and the people that they hardly had any time to think about their own interests. [* reports on the Duma proceedings in September, October and November were published in Vlast No.39, 43 and 47]. The Duma's most significant actions were connected with amendments to the Criminal and Criminal Procedural Codes, aimed at liberalizing the penitentiary system, something President Dmitry Medvedev has advocated for some time. The deputies voted into law a new kind of punishment for minor- to medium- severity crimes in the form of restricting freedom: in their opinion, it can be used with regard to "persons accused of economic crimes who do not pose a physical danger to those around them" and therefore need not be totally isolated from society.
Another non-custodial type of punishment will be public works, which should be used on a much larger scale for minor crimes. Finally, one draft law is called upon to facilitate the extradition to Russia of persons suspected of committing grave and very grave crimes. These amendments to the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedural Code guarantee life to the criminals who, the drafters of the law explain, "have committed offences not punishable by death in the countries from which they are extradited" (in line with the European Convention on Extradition of 1957, a person's rights cannot be infringed upon in the process of extradition).
The Duma passed some laws that affect ordinary people. For example, the introduction of amendments to the Civil Code that cancel tough deadlines for re-registration of limited liability companies may go down well with many small businessmen because they would be spared standing in long queues in order to bring the charters of their firms in line with the new legislation by January 1, 2010. There are unlikely to be many opponents of the laws that allow Russians to obtain new foreign travel passports for a term of ten years, instead of the current five years, while keeping their old ones.
However, some of these laws may not go down very well with the public. Ordinary Russians may have some objections to the amendments to the Code on Administrative Offenses aimed at improving road safety and the law "On the Basic Principles of State Regulation of Trade Activities." The former would increase fines for drinking alcohol of above 12 degrees strength while riding on public transport, and the latter, in the experts' opinion, may create a deficit of staple foodstuffs.
During the final month of the autumn session the deputies hardly passed any legislation for themselves or for their own parties. The only document of this kind worth mentioning was the law on expediting the procedure of nominating governors. After it comes into force, the party that wins the last elections for regional parliament (at present, it is United Russia in all regions without exception) will have not 90 but just 40 days (before the expiration of an incumbent governor's term) to propose candidates for governor. The State Duma missed the rare chance to be seen as the champion of the rights of the non-parliamentary opposition. True, a sensation was brewing at a certain point. During the afternoon plenary session on December 4, the Duma, at the initiative of the Communists, officially instructed its law-making committee to request information from the law enforcement bodies on the reasons for the detention and arrest for ten days of Eduard Limonov, one of the leaders of the Another Russia movement, who was victimized for taking part in an unauthorized rally in Moscow on October 31. However, barely two hours later the deputies changed their minds and recalled the decision, heeding the opinion of the Committee to the effect that "it has no right to interfere with the activities of judiciary bodies."
Dmitry Kamyshev