No More Elections (for Mayor of Samara) – 11/1/06
And just a few days ago I was so hopeful about democracy in Russia because of the results of the mayoral election...
Then, on Monday, The Moscow Times reported that a new political party had been formed, called "A Just Russia." It is the new "opposition party" created by the merger of three old parties that had a couple people in the Duma, the Party of Life, Rodina and the Pensioners' Party. As a result, Russia now effectively has a two party system. At the formal announcement of merger, Mironov, the leader of this new party declared boldly,"We will follow the course of President Vladimir Putin and will not allow anyone to veer from it after Putin leaves his post in 2008."
That's quite a strong statement of opposition. This guy Mironov ran in the last presidential election, and said, "i'm not running against president Putin, i'm running with president Putin... because when our leader goes into battle, we can't let him go alone." He is, quite clearly, the biggest Kremlin puppet around. After reading this article, I went back to check for which party Tarkhov had been the mayoral candidate (somehow this had not occured to me to be important, before), and it was the Party of Life. So, basically, the victory I described was that of one Kremlin stool over another.
This was a real killjoy. My excitement about the democratic process was shot out of the sky.
But today, it got buried deep in the ground. The Moscow Times reported today that the Kremlin is pushing forward a new bill that "would allow the abolition of elected mayors in big cities -- the only powerful officials still outside the Kremlin's direct control." The justification? "'Public officials answer to the public for providing services,' Mokry, chairman of the Duma's Local Administration Committee, said at a news conference. 'If that is not being done properly, then the state has an obligation ... to take the responsibility onto itself.'" I thought the People were supposed to be the ones who bear that obligation. I guess I had it backward. Silly me. The name of the guy being quoted, Mokry, means 'wet' in Russian. I wonder if it also means 'slimey.' Looks like I am back in the camp of the Russia cynics.
This move to the cynics' camp was helped by the fact that on Tuesday, I got a shtraf [a ticket], for crossing the street. I'm not joking, these police officers
apparently had some quota to fill so they stopped their car in the street in front of Samara's biggest mall, MegaCiti. There is a place in the street [see left] which still technically does not have a crosswalk, even though there is a concrete path on one side of the street that connects to a concrete path on the other side, which quickly turns into a crosswalk that goes through the parking lot. There are no signs anywhere instructing pedestrians to do anything (let alone not cross here). The police did not direct the group of people I was walking in not to cross, but after we crossed asked four of us (all students) for our documents. He then gav
e us official shtrafs (rather than taking bribes which is what they usually do). It was very surreal. This path connects the University to the mall [see right], so something like 10 people cross the street in this location every minute. Wave after wave of people crossed the street right in front of the police officers while they were giving us tickets.
This was just another stark example of the way the legal system works in Russia. Technically, almost everything is illegal, so the government can choose when it wants to enforce what law with whom. This can be motivated by politics (as in the case of Khadarkovsky), by the desire of an individual official to make a career for himself (as in the case of the FSB agents that have visited my friend Susie twice at work now to see if they could catch an American not properly registered "on Russian soil") or by lack of an understanding of what better to do (as in this case). This will now be the case even for mayors just doing their jobs.
Oh, well! Look at these pretty pictures I took on a bike ride I went on the other day.
And just a few days ago I was so hopeful about democracy in Russia because of the results of the mayoral election...
Then, on Monday, The Moscow Times reported that a new political party had been formed, called "A Just Russia." It is the new "opposition party" created by the merger of three old parties that had a couple people in the Duma, the Party of Life, Rodina and the Pensioners' Party. As a result, Russia now effectively has a two party system. At the formal announcement of merger, Mironov, the leader of this new party declared boldly,"We will follow the course of President Vladimir Putin and will not allow anyone to veer from it after Putin leaves his post in 2008."
That's quite a strong statement of opposition. This guy Mironov ran in the last presidential election, and said, "i'm not running against president Putin, i'm running with president Putin... because when our leader goes into battle, we can't let him go alone." He is, quite clearly, the biggest Kremlin puppet around. After reading this article, I went back to check for which party Tarkhov had been the mayoral candidate (somehow this had not occured to me to be important, before), and it was the Party of Life. So, basically, the victory I described was that of one Kremlin stool over another.
This was a real killjoy. My excitement about the democratic process was shot out of the sky.
But today, it got buried deep in the ground. The Moscow Times reported today that the Kremlin is pushing forward a new bill that "would allow the abolition of elected mayors in big cities -- the only powerful officials still outside the Kremlin's direct control." The justification? "'Public officials answer to the public for providing services,' Mokry, chairman of the Duma's Local Administration Committee, said at a news conference. 'If that is not being done properly, then the state has an obligation ... to take the responsibility onto itself.'" I thought the People were supposed to be the ones who bear that obligation. I guess I had it backward. Silly me. The name of the guy being quoted, Mokry, means 'wet' in Russian. I wonder if it also means 'slimey.' Looks like I am back in the camp of the Russia cynics.
This move to the cynics' camp was helped by the fact that on Tuesday, I got a shtraf [a ticket], for crossing the street. I'm not joking, these police officers
apparently had some quota to fill so they stopped their car in the street in front of Samara's biggest mall, MegaCiti. There is a place in the street [see left] which still technically does not have a crosswalk, even though there is a concrete path on one side of the street that connects to a concrete path on the other side, which quickly turns into a crosswalk that goes through the parking lot. There are no signs anywhere instructing pedestrians to do anything (let alone not cross here). The police did not direct the group of people I was walking in not to cross, but after we crossed asked four of us (all students) for our documents. He then gav
e us official shtrafs (rather than taking bribes which is what they usually do). It was very surreal. This path connects the University to the mall [see right], so something like 10 people cross the street in this location every minute. Wave after wave of people crossed the street right in front of the police officers while they were giving us tickets.This was just another stark example of the way the legal system works in Russia. Technically, almost everything is illegal, so the government can choose when it wants to enforce what law with whom. This can be motivated by politics (as in the case of Khadarkovsky), by the desire of an individual official to make a career for himself (as in the case of the FSB agents that have visited my friend Susie twice at work now to see if they could catch an American not properly registered "on Russian soil") or by lack of an understanding of what better to do (as in this case). This will now be the case even for mayors just doing their jobs.
Oh, well! Look at these pretty pictures I took on a bike ride I went on the other day.
posted by Dan at 10:46 AM
2 Comments:
Too bad about democrazy! Oh well. Autumn looks nice. You have any thoughts on the upcoming US election?
Unfortunately, I haven't been watching politics back home that closely (except for the occasional scan of the NYTimes headlines). It seems pretty encouraging. I've still got schaudenfreude over the Foley scandal, though it seems that the Republicans have almost managed to get the media to cycle over it.
Recently, I took a trip to Moscow and stayed with my friend, Greg, who is a journalist there. We met up with another journalist friend of his who had spent something like 8 years covering Washington. This guy was really goddamned smart (though shockingly a Republican). He seemed to think that Foley was a knife straight to the heart of the Republicans' bout to keep Congress. His reasoning was this: most Americans in "heartland" country have two basic, deep-seated fears about the parties. The Democrats, they fear, hate America. Easy enough to see; we on the left spend most of our political energy criticizing the U.S. government in the hopes that this will bring progress.
Their fear about Republicans is that deep down, all their moralizing is a cover up for perversion. That their supposed stance as the party of "values" is pure hypocrisy.
It was the opinion of Greg's friend that nothing affects swing voters more than stimulating these fears.
Recently in my thirst for clips from the Daily show I came across this YouTube gem, which really backs up this claim. It's definitely worth watching the first couple of minutes. You really see what Greg's friend was talking about.
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