The United Russia party has not given up its ambition of conferring the status of national leader on Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister and leader of the party. For starters, they decided to promote him to the role of the country's top human rights champion. Mr Putin's public reception offices have been opened in all the Russian regions. Anyone can come to the office to complain about the actions of the governor or the mayor and get legal advice.
The head of the party's Supreme Council, Boris Gryzlov, told RBC Daily yesterday that the number of appeals and petitions coming to Vladimir Putin's reception offices "is simply staggering". In Europe, a similar function is usually performed by ombudsmen. Putin's reception offices may make inroads into the institution of human rights commissioners, experts believe.
The institution of ombudsmen, or human rights commissioners, first appeared in Sweden in the early 19th century. In Russia, it is more than 10 years old. The current Russian ombudsman is Vladimir Lukin, a former leader of the Yabloko party, but it looks as if he will soon have to share the honour of being the country's main human rights champion with Vladimir Putin.
United Russia opened its leader's public reception offices in all 83 regions of the country. "The reception offices are a channel for informing the party leader, and queries pertaining to human rights will without a doubt come to the reception offices," deputy secretary of the presidium of the United Russia General Council, Yury Shuvalov, told RBC Daily.
"Russia is the only country today that has the institution of public reception offices. In Europe, this function is performed by ombudsmen, people who receive complaints from the public and solve public problems," says Andrei Vorobyov, the head of United Russia's (UR) central executive committee.
Initial dealings with visitors to the reception offices have shown that Russians have nowhere to go with their grievances, said the head of the UR Supreme Council Boris Gryzlov: "The number of complaints is simply staggering. One gets the feeling that to date, there have been no places where people can go to seek redress."
Three quarters of Russians have welcomed the idea of Mr Putin creating public reception offices, according to VTsIOM, a pollster.
Human rights activists admit that the reception offices may make a great difference.
"The human rights commissioner can pass on a complaint to a corresponding agency and prepare a report on this or that problem, but the Putin reception offices will be able to tap his authority as Prime Minister," says Mara Polyakova, a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group.
The UR leadership declares that it will tightly supervise the party members who will work at Mr Putin's public reception offices: "For the first time, the party is tackling the function of public communication, and it must have a clear idea of the significance of this mission," says Mr Vorobyov.
However, local members of UR were quick to realise that the "communication mission" could put the head of Vladimir Putin's reception office among the top five officials in the region, triggering a personnel war over this position.
To prevent the regions from getting swelled heads, instructions have been prepared for the heads of reception offices; measures stipulate how a complaint would work its way through the government system, so as to help the petitioner without infringing upon the governor's powers. Experts believe that United Russia is trying to use Vladimir Putin's name as its brand.
"Vladimir Putin is just about the only electoral asset the party has, so it is going out of its way to appropriate the Prime Minister's name with an eye to future election campaigns," analyst Alexei Makarkin notes.
Tatyana Kosobokova, Rustem Falyakhov
