Posted on 09/14/2004 9:47:41 AM PDT by Luis Gonzalez
President Vladimir Putin has announced radical changes to Russia's democratic institutions that will give the Kremlin greater power than at any time since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Mr Putin effectively negated the right of citizens to elect a regional representative. Instead, he will propose the country's 89 regional governors.
He also announced on Monday that seats in the Duma allocated to single-member constituencies will be replaced with a fully proportional system.
Mr Putin said the changes were vital to boost state authority after the Beslan tragedy, in which hostages were killed when Chechen rebels raided a school.
The move will accord even greater control to his United Russia party, which already has the backing of about two-thirds of the deputies in the Duma.
The announcement, made in an address to regional governors, follows the school siege in southern Russia, which ended with the deaths of more than 300 people, half of them children.
Unfinished security checks have delayed the reopening of the Beslan school. Children had been due to resume classes yesterday, but police had not completed checking security using sniffer dogs and bomb experts. Radio and TV said all Beslan schools should reopen today.
Mr Putin said his initiatives would make Russia safer and easier to govern. Critics said the proposals were further proof that Mr Putin, who has muzzled independent media and turned parliament and government into Kremlin rubber stamps, was rolling back post-Soviet democracy.
"The last link in the system of checks and balances, which has prevented an excessive concentration of power in one pair of hands, is being abolished," the opposition party Yabloko said.
Since coming to power five years ago, Mr Putin has made no secret of his admiration for many aspects of the Soviet system. While he has pursued a pro-Western foreign policy, he has curbed media freedoms and brought down big businessmen who challenged the Kremlin.
He has also set out to curb regional autonomy, a reversal of Boris Yeltsin's policy of giving the regions as much sovereignty "as they could swallow".
If, as seems certain, Mr Putin's measures are passed, the Kremlin will propose regional governors whose appointments will be voted on by regional legislatures. It is unclear what will happen if a Kremlin candidate is rejected.
Few dispute that many regional governors in Russia are corrupt and allied to crooked businessmen and gangsters who helped them win their positions.
Most Russians are unlikely to complain about the changes. But past moves to curb regional power have done little to raise standards. United Russia has a record of ignoring corrupt, even criminal, activity providing the representative is loyal to the Kremlin.
Dmitry Oreshkin, head of the Mercator analytical group, said: "In reality the governors are not very well controlled by the electorate. But it is counter-productive to take the initiative away from the people. The first shoots of democracy are being trampled on. This is a move towards Soviet times."
Vladimir Rimsky, an analyst with the Indem think tank, said it was all part of Mr Putin's policy of strengthening central bureaucracy at the expense of local control. But he doubted whether the moves would make events such as the school attack less likely.
"The administration in Moscow is unable to see all that is happening in the regions. The Beslan events prove that," he said. "Such a vertical power structure cannot be effective in fighting terrorism because it removes all local initiative and requires a long chain of approvals for any decision."
Other initiatives include creating a unified anti-terrorism agency and appointing associate Dmitry Kozak to oversee the northern Caucasus, which covers Chechnya, Ingushetia and Northern Ossetia.
- Telegraph, Reuters
PING!
=== radical changes to Russia's democratic institutions that will give the Kremlin greater power than at any time since the fall of the Soviet Union
It would be nice if just once folks had the honesty to point up even one example of the Kremlin's being "out of control" in the least.
Strictly dramatic stagings -- such as Yeltsin's aping Lenin and standing atop a tank as he fired on the "White House" -- don't count, of course.
But this seems to be the final stages of the rollback into full-fledged communism.
Now, hang around and watch FReepers defend Putin.
I'm hanging out here to read about Putin and the hurricane solely. Trust me ... I've no desire to wretch by reading the moronic comments of faithbased sychophants who've bought the Pootie-Poot "soul" story just as surely as they bought the ballyhooed "fall of communism."
Sickens me. I'm angry that they are being taken for a ride by those who sure as hell know better and I try to avoid contempt where possible.
I know I was attacked for daring to question how he handled Beslan.
The Putin sympathizers have been out in force. I don't understand it. Everyone got all mushy on him after Beslan.
This should serve as a warning to folks who are eager to give up liberty for security. I could see very similar things happening under a Hillary administration in the name of the "war on terror".
The Russkies briefly adopted 'democratic reforms' and now are stumbling blindly into neo-fascism.
Putin uses war on terrorism to tighten grip on democracy [No more elections for governors.]
The Telegraph ^ | 14SEP04 | Julius Strauss
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1215159/posts
Geopolitical Diary: Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2004
STRATFOR ^ | September 14, 2004
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1215449/posts
You've got some of the elements necessary: a very popular leader, an enemy that the common everyday citizen can recognize, a nostalgia for past national greatness and glory, gradual and not so gradual steps toward a consolidation of power, a populace willing to surrender liberty for the illusion of safety, etc.
Historically, in Europe and other places, we've seen these conditions lead to a very grim place.
communism.
Fascism. The Left. NObody does it better.
Let's not overlook the very distinct possibility that this whole mess with Chechnya was dreamed up to benefit Putin's candidacy, and to distract from Boris Yeltsin's legal problems - which of course were solved by Putin's pardon immediately after his election.
Communism is obviously bad, but the real danger here is a totalitarian state, whether it's communist or not.
The world has changed, though, and Islamic terrorism is a common enemy we all face. On the other hand, so was Nazi Germany, but I'm still hoping for the best.
Free Tradw with Communism is nuts
Putin is doing what now has to be done......to protect any kind of future for Russian citizens.
Putin is doing what now has to be done......to protect WMD.
Pray for Russia....
Putin is doing what now has to be done......to protect Rome.
Thanks for the ping!
I have tended to give Putin the benefit of the doubt for a number of reasons, but this is a move that clearly increases the power at the center.
Whether it is a return to Soviet Russia or not, I defer judgement. It is at the very least a move toward an increasingly third-world Russia. There is nothing more typically third world than governorships appointed by the central government. You see this again and again in third world countries, all tax revenues must be doled out by the central government, and key positions are appointed by the central government, which means that, even when these countries are technically democracies, the whole process at every level is subservient to whichever party is in control, rather than the people.
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