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This is what has me paying attention, there are many of these reports in the news.

http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/1010/o_13766.htm

The St. Petersburg
Times

#1010, Friday, October 8,
2004

OPINION

Forget About the Constitution

By Vladimir Ryzhkov

On Sept. 27,
President Vladimir
Putin began to
implement the
political reforms he
had announced two
weeks before. He
introduced a bill in
the State Duma that
would cancel direct gubernatorial elections
and introduce instead de facto appointment
of regional leaders by the president.

On Sept. 29, the Duma Council promptly
forwarded the bill to the regions, as required
by law. The regions have one month to
deliver their assessment of the president's
plan. Regardless of their reaction, however, a
first reading of the bill in the Duma will take
place Oct. 29.

The bill's fate in the Duma is not in doubt.
United Russia, which enjoys a constitutional
majority in the lower house, came out in
favor of the bill before it was even drafted.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democrats will
back the bill as well; the party has been
calling for the appointment of governors for a
decade. Most of Dmitry Rogozin's supporters
are also big fans of the "power vertical,"
Putin's executive chain of command.

The only dissent will come from the
Communists and independent deputies, about
60 votes in all. Some 370 to 390 deputies will
vote for the bill, and the Duma may decide to
hold all three readings of the bill in a single
session. Approval of the bill by the Federation
Council will inevitably follow. By the time the
87th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution
rolls around, the Russian people may well
have been stripped of one of their most
important democratic rights-the right to elect
their regional leaders.

Deputies will have no chance to amend the
legislation. Conceptually, the law is so
simple, even primitive, that the slightest
change would alter its substance. The
substance of the bill is this: The president
can install anyone he likes as a regional
leader. He can also remove those leaders at
will. Regional legislatures must confirm the
president's nominees, but in practice this will
amount to nothing more than a rubber
stamp.

The process works like this: The president
nominates a Russian citizen at least 35 years
of age for approval by a regional legislature.
A majority vote is required for confirmation.
If a majority is not obtained, the president
has one week to nominate a new candidate
or to send the same name back to the
legislature. If deputies again refuse to play
ball, the president appoints an acting
governor and has the option to dissolve the
legislature. He can also leave well enough
alone; the acting governor, you see, can
serve for up to five years. In any case, the
president's man runs the region, not
someone elected by the people or the
legislature.

The procedure for firing governors is equally
simple. If the president loses faith in his
appointee, or feels that he isn't up to par, he
simply pulls the plug. Regional legislators
have no say in the matter. The president
merely informs them of his decision and
submits a new candidate for their approval.
Regional lawmakers cannot fire the governor.
They can hold a vote of no confidence, but
the president is entirely within his rights to
ignore the result.

The problem is that Putin's plan violates the
Constitution-specifically articles 1, 3, 5, 10,
11, 32, 71, 72, 73 and 77-and weakens the
state. It also runs counter to a number of
Constitutional Court rulings, most specifically
the Jan. 18, 1996, ruling in which the court
held that only the direct election of regional
leaders can be considered to satisfy the
requirements of the Constitution.

The new political system created by Putin's
plan will have no legal foundation in the
Constitution, and this will have disastrous
consequences for the country. Nor will
Kremlin-appointed governors enjoy
legitimacy in the eyes of the people. Poll
after poll has shown that a majority of
Russians either don't understand Putin's
proposals or don't approve of them. Most
voters want to carry on electing their leaders
because they understand that elected officials
care more for the interests of their
constituents than appointed ones do. The
Beslan tragedy made clear that the
Kremlin-appointed leaders in Chechnya and
Ingushetia have no connection with the
people, and are therefore utterly impotent.

The examples of Chechnya and Ingushetia
offer little hope for the future. Soon Russia's
vast expanses will be controlled by 89
Kremlin emissaries, each guided by the
sentiments of a senior official under Emperor
Nicholas I: "I know only the tsar, and I have
no use for Russia!" Some will be
functionaries, outsiders in their regions.
Others will be aging bosses whose political
lives have been extended by the Kremlin. But
Putin will not be able to extend the people's
faith in them. Neither functionaries loyal only
to Moscow, nor regional "khans" who have
long worn out their welcome, will lend the
new political system the authority and
legitimacy necessary for Russia to become a
stronger, more cohesive state.

Putin's call for an active civil society will die
on his lips. For how can society lift itself up
when the president has denied it any role in
running the country?

The new governors will be granted additional
control over the regional offices of the
so-called federal power ministries. But this
will lead only to greater excesses and greater
corruption.

What's next? In November, a number of
regional leaders such as Tatar President
Mintimer Shaimiyev and Kemerovo Governor
Aman Tuleyev, who are confident in their
power and sure of the Kremlin's backing, will
resign before their current terms are out. The
Kremlin will appoint them in short order, and
the grateful emissaries will announce their
intention to strengthen the presidential chain
of command. Other regional leaders will have
little choice but to follow suit, enabling the
Kremlin to purge unsuitable candidates. The
Kremlin will not wait until 2009.

Next on the agenda: including local
government in the chain of command. The
Constitution will be forgotten, and the
Constitutional Court will once more remain
silent. The bureaucracy will gain complete
control of the country, while the people are
removed from the loop. Things will be just as
they were before 1917, and before 1991.

I'm afraid the end result will be exactly the
same.

Vladimir Ryzhkov, an independent State
Duma deputy, contributed this comment to
The St. Petersburg Times.
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