Targeting democracy

The political and security-related reforms proposed by President Putin are widely seen as an attempt to concentrate power in the Kremlin's hands and undermine the democratic process in Russia.

in Moscow

"The struggle against terrorism is a national task that calls for mobilising all resources. It is clear that the unity of the power vertical must be ensured without question."

- President Vladimir Putin

PRESIDENT Putin's proposals to "reform" Parliament and the government in the wake of the massacre of 300 people, including many children, taken hostage in a school in Beslan in North Ossetia in the first week of September has raised concerns about Russia's democracy.

Within days of the tragedy, Putin proposed a sweeping political and security-related reform package ostensibly to combat terrorism. However, analysts feel, the real aim is to concentrate power in the Kremlin's hands.

As part of the reforms, Putin indicated that he would introduce a law to end the direct election of Governors to the 89 regions in the country. Instead, he proposed that candidates for governorships would be nominated by the Kremlin and would have to be `endorsed' by local legislatures.

He also proposed changes to the Duma (Parliament), including the elimination of popularly elected single mandate State Deputies. The move will change the very composition of the Duma, bringing an end to the system that encouraged contests at the constituency level to elect independent local deputies. Such candidates fill half the 450 seats in the Duma. Putin said: "I think we should introduce a proportionate system of elections to Parliament and [I] will submit a draft law to this effect soon."

He reportedly favours electing the entire Parliament by using centrally compiled national party lists, a move that would apparently eliminate several small political parties and groupings from the electoral fray. The move, critics contend, would favour the few large pro-Kremlin political parties such as the United Russia, which controls more than two-thirds of the seats in the Duma.

To boost his own "war on terror", Putin appointed Cabinet Chief of Staff Dmitry Kozak as his envoy to the South Federal District, which includes Chechnya. Kozak will also head a Federal Commission that will try to get to the roots of terrorism by tackling social issues such as poverty and education in the Caucasus.

Putin has ordered a crackdown on extremist organisations. He censured foreign governments for tacitly supporting such organisations. The reference was to the United Kingdom and the United States. He urged them to stop supporting "the emissaries and lobbyists of terrorists".

Commenting on the President's proposal to nominate regional Governors, Georgi Satarov, president of the Moscow-based Indem Foundation, said: "The main point here is not that they will be elected, but that they will be elected on the President's nomination. Even this little detail shows what the President meant when he said in the address in the aftermath of the Beslan tragedy that we live in a country where the political system is not appropriate to the level of society's development. He meant that our country lacks dictatorship."

Dmitry Oreshkin of the Mercator Group said the move "is a rollback from democratic procedures in organising regional government bodies. However, this is a normal administrative reaction to what is happening in many regions. The President is building up a hierarchy of the bureaucracy and he controls the bureaucrats; but that doesn't mean the bureaucrats will be able to control the situation."

Speaking to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Andrei Piontkovsky of the Centre of Strategic Studies in Moscow said: "Putin is still sharpening and honing the hierarchy of governance he has spent five years building. Let's call it "Putinocracy": all levers of governance are in the hands of one person. It is a continuation of the process of eliminating all institutions of civil society - the same process that has led to the recent disasters in Russia. It would be naive to expect anything different from Putin. He will continue to proceed along his chosen path, and since no mechanisms for a change of government exist, this is the path to disaster for Russia. Putin is not a solution to Russia's problems; he is part of the problem. And he has just demonstrated that he is Russia's biggest problem."

Sergei Markov of the Moscow-based Institute of Political Studies reacted cautiously to the proposals. He said: "All these measures may be viewed as elements of managed democracy. We have had a mixture of democracy and authoritarianism for the past 15 years; it's just that the ratio has been constantly changing. Moreover, chaos and anarchy have persisted to a considerable degree. All this leads to unprecedented levels of corruption, and - as a result - to terrorist attacks which the authorities cannot prevent.

"If the President's proposals are part of a plan to reduce corruption in Russia, then this should be welcomed. But if they stand alone, they won't have much impact on the war on terrorism - since I don't think that having regional leaders elected by the people is the key factor that makes terrorist attacks possible. Temporarily abolishing popular elections for regional leaders certainly won't strengthen democracy in Russia, but I don't think it is appropriate to criticise the President harshly for that right now, at a time when the priority is security."

While Opposition and liberal parties have received the proposals with concern, pro-Kremlin parties are vociferously supporting them. Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin recently issued a veiled warning to Putin. He said: "We should not allow ourselves to step away from the letter - or the spirit - of a Constitution that the country adopted in a national referendum in 1993." Yeltsin added: "The strangling of freedoms, the rollback of democratic rights - this can only mean that the terrorists won." He reminded Putin that "only a democratic country can successfully lead a fight against terrorism".

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev expressed concern over this development. Speaking to Interfax news agency he said: "Of course, this initiative has positive aspects. But I think negative factors outweigh the positive ones. And what counts most is that this will undoubtedly limit people's rights, including the fact that people will lose their right to make a choice."

Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, speaking to RIA Novosti, said: "The regime has shown once again that it is unable to cope with a normal dialogue even in the State Duma's lower house. That is why it is urgently imposing its decisions on this country."

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the sweeping political changes to fight terrorism proposed by Putin would erode Russia's democratic reform process. He said: "In effect this is pulling back on some of the democratic reforms. We have concerns about it and we want to discuss them with the Russians."

"On the institutional reform in Russia, we are watching it very carefully," Emma Udwin, the foreign affairs spokeswoman for the executive European Commission, said at a news briefing. "Obviously this is an internal affair for Russia, but all of us who are faced with the challenge of tackling the modern evil of terrorism have to at the same time pay due respect to democracy and human rights."