Corruption Still Flourishes under Putin
On February 6, the Russian newspaper Vedomosti released some of the findings of a research project called ???The Nature and Structure of Corruption in Russie.??? Carried out by the Institute for Public Projects (INOP) and the Institute for Comparative Social Research (CESSI), the research revealed that the highest level of corruption is observable in the tax collection service, while the recipients of the largest bribes are members of judiciary, the same judiciary responsible for ensuring that the financial and banking regulations are enforced through the courts. As expected, law-enforcement bodies and public health get also colossal ???cuts.???
The black economy, grown large by dint of the collapse of the former Soviet Union, accounts for 40-50 per cent of the economic activity in Russia and no Kremlin government has shown the will to fight corruption because it is happening on such a massive and all-pervasive scale that it became a norm rather than an exception.
In 2006, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank organization headquartered in Washington, argued that Russia is already a ???criminal syndicalist??? state, comprising corrupt officials at all levels of government, successful full-time professional criminals (the Russian Mafia), and businessmen who seem to regard Russian law and Western norms of commerce, respectively, not as barriers to be respected but as mere obstacles to circumvent.
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United Russia appears to be on the brink of complete political dominance. With Putin at the head of its list of candidates, December's parliamentary elections have been transformed into something akin to a vote of confidence in his continued rule. And there's little doubt of the outcome. United Russia has already used its power as the leading party in Parliament to change the way elections are held, excluding independents and small parties from running at all. Now, with the backing of the Kremlin and a candidate list dominated with incumbent regional leaders, United Russia will be sure to sweep the board. These leaders head the local governments that control most media outlets and advertising billboards in Russia's provinces; national television stations are tightly supervised by the state. Many local business barons, such as Viktor Rashnikov, director of the Magnitogorsk Steel Factory (with 69,000 employees), and Vladimir Gruzdev, owner of the Seventh Continent supermarket chain (annual sales: $130 million), are also party members, lending their cash and influence to the cause. In some areas, the party will enjoy a communist-style 100 percent of the vote—at least that's the result Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of Chechnya, told the United Russia congress it could expect from his republic.
The real secret of United Russia's rise is, of course, the magic of the president's endorsement. Putin enjoys approval ratings well over 70 percent, in part because of state influence over most media—but also because most Russians have enjoyed a tangible improvement in their quality of life. That's true for loyalists, as well as for many liberals, who were disgusted by the corruption of the 1990s, and welcomed Putin's strong hand. Democracy, to many Russians, equaled anarchy. "In the 1990s, there were around 100 political clans—that was the mess that United Russia had to take care of," says party youth leader Demidov. "We are constructing a new political system in the country, and that's what makes us popular."
Indeed millions of ordinary Russians love Putin as a savior, and find his leadership and vision powerfully attractive—far more attractive than the dubious virtues of democracy and the right to choose among political parties. It seems that after 15 years of an imperfect democracy, Russians are on the brink of exercising their democratic right for the last time—and put an end to messy multiparty politics once and for all.
© 2007
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