#9
Novoe Vremya
November 18, 2001
BRIBERY AGAIN
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
Most residents of Russia believe that state civil servants, representatives of power of all levels are not honest, take bribes and abuse their power. 62% think that corruption (bribe-taking) "is widely spread in Russia", 29% value it as " a pretty widespread" thing, while one per cent and a half consider it to e rare, and only half a per cent said that corruption in our country is very rare. 7% could not answer the question definitely. These considerations have recently been supported by the check-up of top-ranking state officials and their departments, conducted by the General Prosecutor's Office. Obviously, different people have their own set of dishonest oligarchs and corrupted civil servants and politicians. For example, in the last year of Yeltsin's presidency, when asked "whom of the politicians do you consider to be the most corrupted, mercenary and dishonest", people answered the following way: 17% of them thought it to be Yeltsin, 14% - Berezovsky, 6% - Chubais, 4% - Chernomyrdin, 3% - Zhirinovsky. The rest got less than 1 to 2%. At that, the attitude toward Berezovsky is special.
When two years ago deputies appealed to the leaders of the CIS member states to dismiss him from the post of Executive Secretary of the CIS, the idea was supported by 56% of the population with 14% of those against, and 30% could not answer. In the spring 2000 42% were for arresting Berezovsky, while 11% were against this. Since then, each time the criminal procedure against Berezovsky was resumed, 60 to 65% have expressed certainty that he will manage to avoid criminal responsibility, and only 15% believe he may get imprisoned.
No sooner had Primakov made some steps in fighting corruption hat his rating became half as much. In September, 2000 he was the first politician who was claimed to reach any results in anti-corruption campaign. 22% called him, 14% preferred Zyuganov, 12% - Stepashin. This was until Vladimir Putin came onto the political stage. Shortly after he was elected as the president, 46% (with 22% against) believed that he would stop increase in crime, including crimes on the highest levels of the power. Approximately in this proportion people appraised his first steps as the president - 43% considered them "the beginning of a real fight against corruption". 28% did not share this opinion, and 29% had no ideas on this matter. During the year and a half of Putin's presidency these expectations have kept on the same high level. Obviously, it is high time to confirm them with concrete actions.
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