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
Hi to You! The format and routine have changed a great deal since I last inhabited this site. Maybe even better than before? I'm trying to familiarizing myself with the limited time I have these days.
I saw this coming when Putin was first put in charge in Russia and they said he was ex-KGB... the whole thing ever since has been one big DUH... starting with shuting down their newly-free press.
WTO
What say you about the man in the Kremlin?
And now Chechnyan rebels are saying they'll carry out more school-type attacks in Russia if western countries don't influence Russia to free Chechnya.
Careful, you might be called a communist for questioning the Kremlin.
Free trade with Cuba?
Canada is communist?
Are you posting from one of those bizarro universes where Superman used to get stuck in once in a while?
I kept watching the scenes from the Beslan massacre, and only one question kept running through my head:
Who benefits from this?
The answer is now crystal clear.
Not that I consider them recommended reading in most regards, but for the last ten years there have been numerous international agencies (now I'm going to be branded a UN lover) pointing out a lot of bloody abuses by the Soviets (oops, I meant the Russians) in Chechnya and makes for chilling reading.
Sure, that in no way justifies the murder of those children, but how much of their blood is on Putin's hands?
Twenty-five percent of the total population killed, including in excess of 40,000 children.
Genocide.
OOOooohh..........You dared to insinuate that Putin may be partially responsible for some of the hatred the Chechens feel. Tsk, tsk. Putin brutal? His hands are lily white. Btw, how lily white can an ex-KGB member's hands be?
Same media corporate meedia which pretend to care so much for democracy in Russia were encouraging Yeltin military assault on Parlament after the latter tried to prevent the distribution of national wealth to the great thiefs ie "reform minded oligarchs".
The fact that Putin has 70%+ percent support while Yeltsin had ~7% is intepreted as Putin being anti-democratic while Yeltsin being the champion of people's power.
Luis, did you like regimes of Batista and Somoza?
How would YOU handle Beslan? Would you wait longer untile children die out of thirst? Or would you use Waco approach?
Putin IS elected and IS popular. This is not way to dictatorship but to strong centralized presidential system. This is how De Gaulle saved France from the crisis.
Russia had monarchical tradition and cannot take much of decentralization American pre-Lincoln style without falling into civil war.
Western countries will do their best (as they did in Kosovo). But citizens of Beslan have other plans - they want to bury Wahabi freedom fighters with the pigs! See text in Russian ( babelfish translation):
http://www.strana.ru/stories/04/09/06/3534/226560.html
Exactly like in Kosovo!
Putin Pong
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