Moskovsky Komsomolets
Blogger attacks Putin’s Front
Blogger Alexei Navalny, a lawyer, wrote in his LiveJournal entry that he had asked legal authorities to investigate the legitimacy of the Russian People’s Front initiated by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
“Companies across Russia have been responding with enthusiasm to Putin’s proposal that their teams join the People’s Front. They are sending greetings and actually joining that association,” Navalny, who is known for his crusades against corruption, wrote commenting on his complaint lodged on June 21.
He quoted the letter he wrote to Yury Chaika, recently reappointed Prosecutor General.
“The members of the People’s Front’s managing bodies have violated federal laws on multiple occasions since the Front’s inception,” he wrote.
Under the law on public associations, a group can be granted a legitimate public association status if it complies with three requirements: to hold a general meeting; to adopt a charter; and to establish management and supervision bodies. Otherwise, the group is illegal and ends up outside the “legal environment,” Navalny explains.
The People’s Front has not adopted any charter. However, its membership is growing rapidly. Individuals and organizations follow the Front’s application procedure and receive acceptance notifications from the Front’s federal and regional coordinating councils.
“This situation is absurd and incompatible with the founding principles of the law. No one can become a member of something that does not exist legally,” Navalny wrote.
However, among the Front members there are “legitimate legal entities such as associations and unions, not-for-profit partnerships and others, which is in obvious conflict with law,” Navalny points out. As for companies, their representative teams cannot be viewed as legitimate groups involved in any legal relationships. In fact the very notion of “work collective” the Front uses to describe a group of people employed by a company has lost any legitimate effect since February 1, 2002, Navalny wrote.
Therefore, given that the People’s Front is not a legal entity, it becomes unclear how it could have signed the lease for its office and headquarters at Moscow’s City Hall.
The Front also abuses the taxpayers’ rights because Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov covers its operation during his working hours, Navalny adds. As for the prime minister, there is no evidence that he has ever applied for days or hours off to spend time at the People’s Front either. Navalny also points out that the government’s financial and technological resources are being freely used by the Front.
Navalny asked the Prosecutor General’s Office to investigate the Front and its leaders and if any violations are exposed, to order its leader, Vladimir Putin, to improve the Front’s operation, or to suspend or ban the illegal association.
A blog follower nicknamed teh_yonta left a comment under Navalny’s LJ post: “It’s a pity all of this will lead nowhere. Everybody knows how laws are observed if they get in the way of Putin and his gang.”
Gazeta.ru
Counter-terrorist operation in Dagestan continues
A large-scale counter-terrorist operation involving aircraft and artillery is underway for the second day in Dagestan’s Kizlyar district. The operation’s target is to destroy a large group of militants and the leader of the Kizlyar Jamaat terrorist gang, Ibragimhalil Daudov, who may be hiding in the besieged forest. Special Forces are suffering heavy losses: seven men have been killed and 16 wounded.
The group of 30 militants is part of the so-called Kizlyar Front of Dagestan which, according to a source in the local law enforcement agencies, is led by Ahmed Idrisov, also known as Abubakar or Kizlyar amir, Daudov’s deputy.
The operation began less than 24 hours after the murder of Lieutenant Colonel Magomed Gamzatov of Dagestan’s security service.
At 6.30 a.m. on Tuesday, security forces surrounded a group of armed militants in a forest near the village of Kuznetsovka, the press service of Dagestan’s interior ministry reported. A counter-terrorist regime was introduced in the area. The operation, which is run by the National Counter-Terrorism Committee, involves practically all security agencies: crime police, interior troops, Special Forces and a fire task group.
The embattled militants were first offered to surrender, but they responded by opening automatic fire. Two members of Russia’s center for special operations in Dagestan were killed on the spot. Medics took nine other wounded to Kizlyar’s central hospital.
It was then decided to commit helicopters to the operation. At first, the helicopters were used to determine the number of militants and their exact location. Then an artillery barrage began. Thermal imagers were brought into action at night.
According to a source in Dagestan’s security-related agencies, the militants have well-fortified underground shelters, which they are using to put up fierce resistance. The shelters and the forested terrain are making the capture of the insurgents difficult.
“The area was cordoned off three-deep for the night,” the source said. “But at 2:00 a.m. the militants attempted to break out, starting a scuffle. Three servicemen were killed and three wounded,” the source added.
On Wednesday, the fighting in the Kizlyar district resumed with renewed force. Helicopters went into battle again, and a tank engaged in action in addition to the artillery barrage. It was reported that the number of troops killed increased to 7 and those injured to 16.
On Wednesday afternoon, a lull followed several hours of artillery fire. “The area is still cordoned off, but troops are not yet risking entering the forest,” the source said. Official comments from the National Counter-Terrorism Committee’s information center are scarce.
An Interfax source in the law enforcement agencies reported the sighting of at least five dead bodies of militants in the forest. “We cannot reach them because of interfering fire,” the source said. The Investigative Committee of Russia officially confirmed the death of one militant.
Vedomosti
The price of democracy
Democracy becomes much stronger when a per capita income reaches $10,000, but not in Russia, Renaissance Capital concluded after surveying 150 countries’ development over the past 60 years.
The evolution of political systems can be compared to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, from the most basic physiological needs to self-actualization at the top. Only democracy can ensure self-actualization, Renaissance Capital experts write in a report.
“We demand political rights only when we have enough to eat, a place to live and are thinking of buying a car,” they write. The hierarchy of democratic needs can be gauged by the GDP per capita level.
Democracy is fragile when GDP per capita is below $6,000. A higher level makes democracy more secure, yet the probability of political unrest is high in non-democracies even when it is above $6,000. Evidence of this is Tunisia, whose GDP per capita level was $8,300 in 2009, according to the Penn World Table.
Democracy is virtually indestructible in rich countries. There has not been a change of political system in a democratic country with a GDP per capita above $10,000, which means that 45 countries, including Eastern Europe, Mexico and Lebanon, will not slide into non-democracy, say the report’s authors. Brazil ($9,352) and Turkey ($9,910) may soon become “indestructible democracies.”
China, with a GDP per capita between $6,000 and $10,000, has entered a dangerous period. High inflation may trigger political unrest there despite plans to double the per capita income by 2015.
Autocracies become indestructible with a $19,000 level, but this is attainable only in energy exporting countries that keep taxes low. Their citizens do not care how the government spends money and hence are less interested in free elections.
Russia has elections but they are not entirely democratic. According to Polity IV, which examines the qualities of democratic and autocratic political systems, Russia is an anocracy – a mixed-system regime, said Renaissance Capital’s chief strategist Charles Robertson.
With a prosperity level exceeding $14,000, Russia is a rich country with a weak democracy and a 30% probability of making it more secure. “The 2018 presidential elections may be more competitive,” the report’s authors believe.
If Russia reaches the level of $19,000 without strengthening democracy, it may have to use force to attain this goal, the report says.
Greater prosperity alone cannot strengthen democracy without free elections, a quality government and innovative business, say MIT economist Daron Acemoglu and Harvard Professor James Robinson.
GDP growth does not directly depend on the form of government, said New Economic School rector Sergei Guriyev. There are rich dictatorships and poor democracies (India), but democratic economies grow faster, he added.
Russia is the richest country stuck between autocracy and democracy, and if it makes the transition to democracy, there is no reason to believe that it will not last, Guriyev said. The government may use oil revenues to redistribute profits in favor of the most protest-prone groups.
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