Russia Profile
November 6, 2008
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
President Medvedev’s Address to the Federal Assembly Leaves Experts with Mixed Feelings
By Dmitry Babich
President Dmitry Medvedev’s Address to the Federal Assembly provoked a lively debate in the Russian press, since changes to the country’s electoral laws and foreign policy statements he suggested provide ample ground for interpretation. All of them can be perceived both as “hawkish” and as “liberal,” depending on the interpreter’s attitude. The extension of the presidential term to six years can be seen as an attempt to curtail democracy, while the proposal to give parties winning five to seven percent of the vote a voice in the parliament can be seen as a concession to the opposition.
In the same way, a tough stance on the deployment of American ABM missiles in Poland is counterbalanced by the suggestion to create a “new global architecture of security” in the “Euro-Atlantic space that would include Russia, the European Union and the United States.”
Traditionally, two thirds of the president’s address is devoted to domestic politics, while one third is left for foreign policy. If Medvedev’s hints at America’s encouragement of the Georgian attack against separatist South Ossetia in August 2008 came as no surprise, his statement on Russia’s plan to deploy Iskander short range missiles in Russia’s Kaliningrad (former Koenigsberg) enclave bordering Poland, surprised many as too strong of a response to Washington’s missile defense program.
“The problem is that as Iskander missiles operate within the range of 280 kilometers, most of these missiles won’t be able to reach American silos on Polish territory,” said Sergei Rogov, director of the United States and Canada Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences. “So, the message that Russia wants to send is the following: firstly, Russia can strike at Polish territory in retaliation for this country’s providing the ground for American missiles. Secondly, Russia shows its readiness to quit the agreements limiting the use of short and medium range missiles. This can leave the arms race outside any kind of international control or agreements.”
In Rogov’s opinion, this puts the whole arms control system in question, since the START-1 treaty (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, signed by presidents Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon back in the early 1970s), expires in 2009. START-1 is the only remaining treaty imposing limitations on ballistic missile deployment. Given that the United States left the ABM treaty, limiting the use of missile defenses, back in 2001, this would fully scrap the system of nuclear arms control created in the 1970s and 1980s by joint efforts of American and Soviet experts.
“In his speech, Medvedev suggested returning to the old agreements and signing new ones, but this can be possible only if Americans reconsider their idea of deploying the ABMs in Poland and installing a radar in the Czech Republic,” Rogov said. “Russia is no longer ready to make unilateral concessions.”
On the home front, Medvedev’s suggestions are thought to continue the political reform started back in Vladimir Putin’s times. “The plan to extend the presidential term to six years was drafted back in 2007 by the First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Vladislav Surkov,” the Vedomosti daily quoted a “Kremlin source” as saying. “The plan included election of a successor who would conduct all necessary constitutional reforms, paving the way for Putin’s return to the Kremlin for a longer, six year term.” Putin decided that changing the constitution in the interests of the incumbent president would not be “ethical,” Vedomosti’s source claimed.
The other changes to the electoral system outlined by Medvedev in his address do not have a principal character. The norm that would give one or two seats in the parliament to the smaller parties may be seen as a small concession to the opposition, but commentators point to other parts of the speech, which actually increase the influence of United Russia, the party chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that unites the governors of 83 of Russia’s 85 regions. For example, only the party holding the majority in the regional legislature (meaning United Russia in most cases) will be able to nominate a candidate for the position of the region’s governor. As for the parties of the liberal opposition (the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko), none of them got more than five percent of the vote. So, their ability to profit from Medvedev’s innovations, giving the voice to five million Russian voters who voted for small parties in 2007, is questionable.
Medvedev also promised to lower the amount of citizen signatures that parties have to collect in order to be allowed to run for local legislatures. This sugar coating, however, contained a bitter pill: it will not be possible to use money deposits as a substitute for signatures. “This is not a democratic move,” said a member of the Duma’s constitutional committee Vadim Solovyov, the chief lawyer of the Communist party of the Russian Federation. “Right now, many small parties use money deposits in order to have a chance to participate, even if they risk losing the money if they get less than seven percent of the vote. Now small parties, not yet represented in the parliament, will have to cut deals with the Kremlin in order to run.”
The controversial electoral innovations, however, were compensated by the criticism of Russia’s authoritarian bureaucracy, in which Medvedev indulged profusely. “The bureaucracy pressures business so that it does not do something wrong. It puts the media under control, so that it does not say something wrong. It gets involved in the electoral process, so that people do not elect someone wrong,” Medvedev said in his address.
“This young man is saying all the right words and one can not escape the impression that at least part of his criticism is directed against the people who have been ruling the country and who continue ruling it now,” said Leonid Gurevich, the head of the Regional Public Group for Human Right Protection. “Who else could have created this evil bureaucracy?”