#3
Moscow Times
November 9, 2001
Editorial
Jury Still Out On Putin's Campaign
The flurry of investigations launched by the General Prosecutor's Office involving top government officials, including Railways Minister Nikolai Aksyonenko and Press Minister Mikhail Lesin, (but also touching the Emergency Situations Ministry, State Customs Committee, State Fisheries Committee and presidential property department) has raised a number of questions.
While there is consensus that such high-level investigations would not have proceeded without the sanction of President Putin, no such consensus exists regarding the motives behind this anti-corruption drive.
Is it driven by a genuine desire to root out corruption and bring corrupt ministers to book? Or are we seeing a more selective form of justice, in which the prosecutor's office is being used to remove well-entrenched ministers with ties to the Family and to clear the way for Putin to appoint trusted allies in their place? And is there an element of personal vendetta either on the part of Putin or Audit Chamber head Sergei Stepashin?
Putin has let it be known that the bare-faced and unfettered corruption of the Yeltsin years will no longer be tolerated. However, in Primorye Governor Yevgeny Nazdratenko and Gazprom CEO Rem Vyakhirov we have seen two cases of high-profile figures with reputations for corruption being left untouched.
Nazdratenko submitted his resignation back in February after the president blamed him for last winter's energy crisis in the Far East. Putin is said to have presented the governor with a simple choice: either voluntary resignation or criminal prosecution. However, a pretty major carrot was also dangled before Nazdratenko in the form of the State Fisheries Committee, of which he was appointed head just a few weeks later.
Likewise, when Vyakhirev was eased out as head of Gazprom at a board of directors meeting back in May, he didn't fall far and enjoyed a soft landing. At the same meeting, he was elected chairman of the board. This is a man who has been accused of running Gazprom as his fiefdom and siphoning off assets to the tune of billions of dollars.
In each case, carrot and stick tactics and backroom deals were preferred to recourse to the legal system.
The charges against Aksyonenko of misappropriating state funds mark the first time in Putin's tenure that criminal charges have been brought against a figure of Aksyonenko's stature. While we applaud these moves, the real litmus test will be whether justice is allowed to run its course or whether the prosecutor's dogs will be called off just as soon a comfortable retirement package has been worked out for the railways minister.
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