Russia 090423 Basic Political Developments

Putin Wants Access to State Secrets

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/1010/42/376508.htm
23 April 2009 The Moscow Times
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will preside over a meeting Thursday that will consider a rule giving the prime minister and other top government officials access to state secrets.

The current law does not say who should authorize the prime minister, presidential chief of staff and ministers to see classified information, the Cabinet said on its web site Wednesday.

The Presidium will discuss legislation to formally empower the president to approve a list of government jobs that automatically have access, the Cabinet said.

The Cabinet would reserve the right to compose the list. Cabinet spokesman Dmitry Peskov chuckled when asked whether Putin had been hindered by the legal gap. "He, naturally, has the necessary access in full," Peskov said.

Survey: People Doubt Medvedev Is the Boss

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/1010/42/376503.htm
23 April 2009

By Nikolaus von Twickel / The Moscow Times

As Dmitry Medvedev ends his first year in the Kremlin, many Russians are doubtful about how much political clout he wields as president, according to a survey released Wednesday.

Just 15 percent of the population believes that Medvedev holds the real power, while 27 percent say Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is pulling the strings, according to the survey conducted by Canadian polling firm GlobeScan for the BBC's Russian service.

The most common opinion, however, is that power is shared equally between the two, a view held by 41 percent of respondents.

The poll also found that most Russians expect that Putin will return to the Kremlin: 57 percent said they expect him to be the next president, while just 24 percent disagreed, GlobeScan said in a statement.

Speculation has been rife that Putin, who gave up the presidency in 2008 after serving two consecutive four-year terms, might come back after a constitutional amendment extending the presidential term from four years to six was whisked through the parliament last year by Medvedev, who is widely seen as Putin's handpicked and loyal successor.

The survey also indicated that 30 percent think that the country is headed in the right direction, while 24 percent think that it is not. "The results show that those who believe Putin will return are more likely to feel that things are headed in the right direction, suggesting that a comeback is seen by many as representing continuity," the pollsters said.

The survey found that less than a third (32 percent) of the population thinks that human rights and civil liberties have improved under Medvedev. About 40 percent disagreed, and the rest took a neutral position or said they were unable to answer.

Yet the pollsters noted that Russians in general did not categorize human rights as a very pressing issue -- only 2 percent mentioned it as top priority.

On foreign policy issues, the survey found that Russians are happy with their country's international influence: Two-thirds (66 percent) said Russia was perceived by other countries as a force for good in the world, while only 12 percent said the country posed a threat to its neighbors. A total of 28 percent said that last year's war with Georgia damaged Russia's image.

The findings contrast with an international GlobeScan poll released in February that showed attitudes about Russia took a dramatic dive last year.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the latest findings showed that the country's foreign policy was supported by most of the population despite the fact that the West was waging an "information war" on Russia.

"Western media that allowed themselves being utilized in that war are now discredited in the eyes of Russians," he was quoted as saying by the BBC.

GlobeScan said it interviewed 1,012 Russian citizens for the latest survey. The margin of error was 3.07 percentage points.

Russian Unemployment Figures Rapidly Rising

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=34887&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=8978d406bd
Publication: Volume: 6 Issue: 77

April 22, 2009 05:57 PM Age: 10 hrs

Category: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Home Page, Economics, Russia

By: Yuri Zarakhovich

On Tuesday April 14, traffic on the Garden Ring Road in downtown Moscow was seriously hampered, as President Dmitry Medvedev made a high profile visit to the Institute of Contemporary Development (INSOR) -his pocket think tank, staffed with many known liberal academics. Medvedev's formal position as Head of INSOR's Board of Trustees is a part of his carefully nurtured "closet liberal" image. The Presidential visit to his scholars, stage-managed with all the typical Kremlin royal pomp and massive media coverage, centered on discussing the increasingly alarming problem of unemployment, badly worsened by the current Russian economic crisis (www.gazeta.ru, April 14).

Indeed, according to the Russian State Statistics Committee, among the country's entire population of 142 million, only 75.6 million (53 percent) are economically active. By late February 2009, 6.4 million (8.5 percent) of the economically active population qualified as unemployed under the International Labor Organization (ILO) standards. Meanwhile, only 2.2 million are officially registered in Russia as unemployed, with 1.7 million of them receiving state support (www.gks.ru).

During the past year unemployment in Russia has doubled (Moskovsky Komsomolets, April 14, 2009), and it continues to grow unchecked, threatening to quickly reach what some experts consider as the critical level of 10 to 12 percent -beyond which social upheavals will become a serious possibility (www.market-pages.ru, April 14).

Hence, Medvedev visited INSOR in order to publicize his concern over the issue. The current 8.5 percent unemployment level, as well as its rapid growth, "Are not the indicators we need," Medvedev stated (www.gazeta.ru, April 14).

Two key INSOR experts responsible for briefing Medvedev on the issue were Yevgeni Gontmakher, Director of the Social Policies Center at the Institute of Economy (Russian Academy of Sciences), and Tatyana Maleva, Director of the Independent Institute of Social Policies. In their interviews with the Moscow-based Echo Moskvy radio station following the meeting, both experts praised Medvedev's grasp of the issue and his understanding of the general need for Russia's modernization as a remedy for unemployment among other economic and social ills. "It is not like when they talk to you in the cabinet," Maleva said pointedly in what sounded like a jibe against Prime-Minister Vladimir Putin. "There, on the contrary, the conversation goes like ‘Tell us what should be done about modernization,' but five minutes later you realize that they are talking about crisis-management suggestions which you are supposed to submit next week." Gontmakher explained: "We did not expect that much media coverage: the entire Kremlin pool and all possible TV stations. I guess he did it to show publicly that he is personally interested in this issue, not just the cabinet who presented their crisis program to him" (www.echo.msk.ru, April 14).

According to these INSOR experts, it is not the rate of unemployment which is most dangerous (in other countries it reached 20 percent), but that it is becoming chronic. This is now the case in Russia, they maintain: "Now, when we do not have a clue, when this crisis will end and the tensions ease, of course, everyone is scared that unemployment might set in for a long period," said Maleva. "As long as new jobs are not being created, this unemployment may indeed become chronic. Then, even the current 8.5 percent level spells major trouble" (www.echo.msk.ru, April 14).

They also believe that the cabinet (indirectly referring to Putin) stubbornly supports an inefficient and obsolete economy to maintain employment. This policy might postpone a social explosion, they say, but only for a while. Neither will this policy ever allow Russia to emerge as a modern and well developed economy. Gontmakher emphasized -in another thinly veiled taunt aimed at the Putin regime- that only free private business can save the situation, but this freedom has long been badly restricted within Russia.

The INSOR experts made some striking suggestions on how to restructure the entire economy and employment system. They talked about a freeze on hiring young people by obsolete industrial giants, left over from the Soviet era. They mentioned the idea of creating social workers systems, unheard-of within Russia, and getting a lot of people, particularly unemployed women in crisis-stricken cities that have grown up around dying industries, employed as social workers. Medvedev listened favorably and nodded approvingly to such ideas as the need to retrain office personnel, most of whom have fake university diplomas, he said.

The INSOR meeting of minds is a striking example of the promotion of Medvedev's image, which his staff recently launched: on April 16, the liberal opposition Novaya Gazeta biweekly ran his interview -the first he has given to a Russian newspaper. On the same day as his INSOR visit, April 14, Medvedev met with a group of top Russian human rights activists and NGO leaders. He conceded at the meeting that the current law on NGO's, (passed by the Russian Duma on Putin's orders) was unduly harsh and needed some corrections (www.24new.ru, April 14).

However, the approving nods to Novaya Gazeta and NGO's, listening to INSOR's ideas and showing a firm grasp of strategic issues make a great public relations campaign. However, it does not promote any meaningful changes in the political and economic scenes, which are still firmly controlled by Putin. More people are applying for the misery of state benefits, which Putin on January 12 ordered to be raised to 4,900 Rubles ($146). Yet, Maleva insists, 4,900 is the highest level. Many people in the regions are bitterly disappointed, when they come to collect the expected 4,900, only to go away with some 800 Rubles ($24) instead (www.echo.msk.ru, April 14).