United Russia and Fair Russia decided to involve active public leaders without membership in their parties into election campaigns to give such people chance to get into the State Duma. Position of Sergey Mironov, Council of Federation speaker, became seriously unstable. The government interfered in the increasing gasoline crisis. Learn details in the weekly expert review of the events by FederalPress.
p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }United Russia and Fair Russia decided to involve active public leaders without membership in their parties into election campaigns to give such people chance to get into the State Duma. Position of Sergey Mironov, Council of Federation speaker, became seriously unstable. The government interfered in the increasing gasoline crisis. Learn details in the weekly expert review of the events by FederalPress.
People’s Front
Vladimir Putin announced creation of the so-called All-Russian People’s Front under the auspices of the United Russia political party. According to Prime Minister, this will allow candidates without membership in any party to participate in the State Duma elections. “It is an instrument of uniting people akin in political spirit”, he said.
The idea caused controversial opinions among other politicians. United Russia Presidium Acting Secretary Sergey Neverov supported the initiative. “Election program will become a mutual document for United Russia and public organizations, which are in fact our old term partners – labor unions, women, youth, farmers and veteran organizations”, Sergey Neverov commented.
Leader of the Fair Russia party disagreed and proclaimed the party’s own people’s front. “Fair Russia Party quite considerably differs from the United Russia in its program mission and tasks. However, like United Russia we have opened our party lists for public organizations, who share similar public interests”, Nikolai Levichev concluded.
Al-Qaeda lost its leader
Russian media continue to discuss death of the terrorist # 1, Osama bin Laden. According to the American media, the situation was personally controlled by the CIS director Leon Panetta. Official sources do not provide any video or photo materials to serve as evidence. Fedor Lukjanov, Russia in Global Affairs Journal Editor-in-Chief, expects that such materials will become public in time.
“It’s likely to be an unofficial leak, and US administration will give no comments”, he says.
Fedor Lukjanov explains the fact that bin Laden was not taken alive by the general practice of handling key terrorist figures. “Terrorists of this scale are never arrested alive. In Russia, mind you, no leader of the underground terrorist movement was taken alive. This probably is an unspoken norm”.
Council of Federation speaker
Chairman of the higher council of the United Russia Boris Gryzlov declared that speaker of the Council of Federation Sergey Mironov should resign his mandate. The head of Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg Vadim Tyulpanov announced procedure of revocation. Sergey Mironov was elected senator to represent the interests of St. Petersburg in the Council of Federation and now his former colleagues have power to revoke his commission.
According to Sergey Markov, Institute of Political Research Director, Federation Council speaker’s chances to lose position today are highest than ever. The politologist relates chances not just to the work of Sergey Mironov in the State Duma, but also to the necessity to decide what side he’s on.
He is speaker of the Council of Federation, part of the Putin’s team in fact, and yet he is the leader of an opposition party. Putin is being attacked from all sides and his opponents use Sergey Mironov as another lever, our expert explains.
It is likely that a person with membership in the United Russia will take the position of the speaker next.
Income declarations
Federal Security Service employees published their income declarations for 2010. Unlike many governors’ families, FSS wives earned much less than their high ranked husbands. Thus, the Head of FSS Alexander Bortnikov earned 4.6 million rubles in 2010, while his wife’s income made just 160 thousand rubles.
The most extraordinary change in the structure of income was demonstrated in the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. The Head of the Republic Arsen Kanokov earned 87 million rubles in 2010. while 2009 earnings had been 87 times less (1 million rubles).
Russia’s famous journalist Vladimir Soloviev is sure state officials declare and publish only a part of their real income, and that they do this solely to spare the feelings of the nation. “They don’t tell the whole truth. Don’t want to traumatize our psyche”.
The journalist also agrees it is better than nothing. A state official must be aware that he will have to declare his income whatever it is. However it is questionable whether the government will decide to extend this practice and ask them declare both income and expenses, state officials, their family members and relatives.
As FederalPress reported earlier, Dmitry Medvedev’s income in 2010 made 3,378,673.63 rubles. Vladimir Putin declared earnings of 5.42 million rubles.
Shadow casinos case
Two suspects in the case of illegal gambling have been put on the federal wanted list. The first deputy public prosecutor for Moscow Region Alexander Ignatenko and public prosecutor of the city of Klin Eduard Kaplun are on the run.
The case of shadow casinos became resonant due to personal interference of the Russian President who demanded to find real evidence to support witnesses’ reports. Mass media have already published information that the said officials took vacation tours abroad which had been paid for by the shadow casinos’ owner.
Chairman of the anticorruption committee Kirill Kabanov says, this case will be finished properly. “The case is handled calmly, in the legal field, and will be closed”. It will also help develop formal relations between the Investigation Committee and General Prosecution of Russia as two separate state bodies.
Fuel crisis
Prime Minister touched upon gasoline crisis during the meeting with the government’s presidium. “It is not deficit, not deficit at all. It is an agreement. They agree with each other and send smaller volumes for trading”, Vladimir Putin explained the strategy of oil companies.
Gasoline crisis has already rushed over Altai Region, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Tuva, Murmansk, St. Petersburg, Sakhalin, Yaroslavl, Kursk and Krasnodar. Igor Sechin, deputy chairman of the government, said additional measures might be applied to ensure that the domestic market is filled with fuel. Oil producers for Central Russia promise to transit more gasoline to Moscow Region and possibly prices will go down.
“Fuel market situation is complicated. Vladimir Putin is right, from his side. Fuel market is shared by a few large companies and we can’t call it competitive”, Konstantin Simonov, National Energy Safety Foundation Director explained.
Even though there is Fuel Exchange in the domestic market, it does not change anything since oil companies control the entire chain of bringing product to the market. Experts hope to see appearance of the independent oil processing companies to save the situation
“Oligopoly continues and it is not realistic to expect that oil exchange or raising export duties will improve the situation”, Mr. Simonov concluded.