KavkazCenter :: Russia

The Institute of Contemporary Development (INSOR) which is considered to be the brain centre of the current Kremlin's formal leader, Medvedev, issued a report in which it suggests a reform of the Russian political system. The proposals of the Medvedev's advisers are:

To reduce the presidential term of office from six to five years and that of the State Duma mandates from five to four years, to return to the election of the State on a mixed principle.

To increase the number of parties in Russia to 20, to allocate about 50 seats in the Duma to independent single-mandate deputies as it was with the group "Regional Policy" during the first dumas. To lower the threshold for proportion representation to 5% and to permit again electoral blocs.

The INSOR's report is entitled "The 21st Century Russia: the Image of the Tomorrow We Want".

The political part of the report is entitled "The Political Future of the Country: Back to the Constitution" and, indeed, somehow reminds of what was under the President Boris Yeltsin, the paper writes.

According to a member of the board of the INSOR, Yevgeny Gontmakher, the idea to issue the report appeared in summer 2009 and, judging by the reaction of Arkady Dvorkovich, an assistant to the president and a member of the board of trustees of INSOR, Medvedev supported it.

The text was sent to Medvedev and Dvorkovich a few weeks ago, told the chairman of the board of INSOR, Igor Yurgens. The Medvedev's assistant told the newspaper that the report is still being studied and he is not ready to comment on it yet.

A considerable part of the report is devoted to political modernization without which, as the authors say, it is impossible to modernize the economy. The modernization is based after all after on a "human capital", the main basis of its success is are highly skilled employees. And for this purpose, a system should be created where human dignity would become a strategic resource and where dictatorship, violence and humiliation are be excluded.

A right-centrist and a left-centrist parties (the Russians tried to create them under Yeltsin) should become the system's kernel, the INSOR says. The first should reflect the demands of the middle class (with at least 50 % population belonging to it), the second party should support traditional industries. The "clans" are to defend their interests through competing parties. The right-wing populists (a successor of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia led by Zhirinovsky) and a new leftist party (a successor of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation led by Zyuganov) would receive no more than 2-4 % of the Russian votes. As in the US, the president and the parliamentary majority should be represented by different parties.

The Russian State should cease to control the media, and a new digital TV should eliminate the monopoly of all-Russia TV channels. Governors, as before 2004, are to chosen by direct votes. Senators are also to be elected the same way but candidates should should be nominated by governors and the Legislative Assembly.

The paper reminds that the chairman of the upper chamber, Sergey Mironov, proposed to elect senators but the initiative received no support from the Kremlin. And Medvedev himself declared that national elections of the governors are not needed in Russia for at least this century.

In order to modernize, a de-bureaucratization of economy is needed, and this can be only accomplished through a "de-economization of bureaucracy", i.e. though banning of profiteering by government official while performing their functions for the state , the authors of the report write. An innovative economy is incompatible "with elements of neo-feudalism and archaic institutions". The state should be an arbiter in the conflict of interests, which means a creation of political pluralism, a competition, a regular power turnovers by various forces and independent courts.

Four pages of the 100-page report are devoted to specific economic measures. The authors suggest a deregulation of the economy, a reduction of a possibility to create rents at the level of executive authorities, a struggle against any merging of economy and business, an opening of strategic sectors for private investments, a rejection of the model of forced growth, scarifying growth quantatities for the sake of growth qualities, long-term rates for the services of natural monopolies.

In the new model, the Interior Ministry is abandoned, its successor would become a Federal Criminal Police Office (FCPO). The regions are to have police forces (in public security and petty crimes) subordinated to the governors.

Instead of internal forces, National Guards are to be established, and the municipal police should operate at a level of urban and rural settlements. The functions of the abandoned road police are to be divided between the police in different levels and a civil service for traffic control.

The Federal Service of Financial Police (FSFP) should reappear to fight against economic crimes.

The KGB (now called the FSB) is to be replaced by a counterintelligence service (as under Yeltsin) and by a Federal Service for the Protection of Constitution dealing with

prevention of terrorist acts and threats of separatism".

"Vedomosti" reminds that in late January Medvedev said, a "federalization of the police, rather than its decentralization" (suggested by the INSOR) is needed.

The Russian armed forces, according to the authors, are to be formed exclusively on a voluntary basis, their numbers should be reduced to 500,000-600,000 (now 1.1 million soldiers. By 2012, the Defense Ministry plans to reduce it to 1 million).

The INSOR sees a new role of Russia on the international arena in its participation in all major global organizations, including WTO and OECD. In the future, Russia would enter the EU and NATO, "which will encourage further positive transformation" of the block, the authors of the report suggest. Before joining the EU, a common market, free movement of goods and services, integration of transport systems, are to be created.

Russia is to become a strategic partner of the United States. The CIS is to be preserved but under new mutually beneficial conditions, and Georgia is to be brought back to the CIS (nothing is said about the fate of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the report).

The authors claim that the document was not written for Medvedev but to stimulate a discussion in the society. A recent protest rally in Kaliningrad in which about 10,000 participants took part (with slogans calling for return to the practice of the elections of governors) shows that people are not willing to tolerate anymore the events in Russian and want to offer their own recipes, Yurgens said. "You may think that we suggested our own recipe", he concludes.

Department of Monitoring,

[1] photo from article