January 29:
Mikhail Gorbachev has said that “something is wrong” with Russia’s elections and
that its electoral system “needs a major adjustment,”
the New York Times reports. The last Soviet leader told Interfax that
the result of the upcoming Russian presidential election was “predictable from
the outset” and “predetermined by the enormous role that Vladimir Putin played.”
Implicitly criticizing Kremlin-led reforms that ended direct popular elections
for the country’s governors, Gorbachev also said “the issue concerning
governors’ elections should also be raised so that people are able to take a
more active part in social and political life.”
January 30:
President Putin has ordered the Federal Security Service (FSB) “to strengthen
work for the timely receipt of information about attempts to interfere in our
internal affairs,” adding that this is “especially important taking the
presidential elections into account,”
NEWSru.com
reports. “Our country is a sovereign state and we will not permit the course
of the election campaign to be adjusted by anyone from the outside,” Putin said.
Police investigators have charged Semyon Mogilevich, the reputed international
crime boss who was living freely near Moscow until his January 23rd arrest, with
tax evasion,
the Associated Press reports. According to AP, Ukrainian Prime Minister
Yulia Tymoshenko has said she suspects Mogilevich was linked to RosUkrEnergo,
the Swiss-registered company that is owned jointly by Gazprom and two Ukrainian
businessmen and has a monopoly on gas sales to Ukraine and supplies gas to
Europe.
The Associated Press quotes Vladimir Milov, president of the Institute of Energy
Policy, as saying that Mogilevich was “most likely” arrested to protect
President Putin’s chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev, who chairs the board of
Gazprom, the state gas monopoly, by removing “an undesirable witness to all the
various suspicious operations connected to RosUkrEnergo.”
January 31:
According to the Telegraph, Vladimir Putin, who has agreed to serve
as prime minister under his likely presidential successor Dmitry Medvedev, may
step down as prime minister to head Gazprom. “The power of the prime minister is
limited,” the British newspaper quotes political analyst Leonid Radzikhovsky as
saying. “The special services are not subordinate to the prime minister, neither
is TV. Common sense suggests that it would be beneficial for Putin to leave the
post of prime-minister and head Gazprom.”
Exposing a “hidden battle” inside Russia’s ruling elite, Finance Minister Alexei
Kudrin has publicly called for a change in foreign policy,
Britain’s Independent reports. “In the nearest future we need to
change our foreign policy goals to guarantee stable investment,” Kudrin told a
Moscow investment forum. Anatoly Chubais, who heads United Energy Systems, the
state electricity monopoly, has concurred. “We really need to think about how
much our foreign policy costs our economy,” Chubais said, adding that aggressive
behavior in foreign policy is scaring off foreign investment. According to the
Independent, Kudrin is seen as a liberal and an ally of Putin’s anointed
successor, Dmitry Medvedev.
February 1:
Russia’s likely next leader “may well soften Moscow’s bare-knuckle approach to
international relations,”
Agence France-Presse
reports. In his first major speech as a presidential candidate on January
22nd, Dmitry Medvedev said: “Why do they fear us? The answer in my opinion is
banal: in part it is simply not clear to them where Russia is going. All these
fears persist today and we must continue to explain our plans openly and
clearly.” Still, Viktor Kremenyuk of the USA-Canada Institute in Moscow said
that while Medvedev is “a manager, not a security services man,” Russia’s “top
managers learn to defend their interests and they’re ready to do that by any
means, even if this means harming relations with the West.” |
