The Yukos affair: PA technologists decided to take no risks. The new stage of the Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s case was the reading of his appeal and his decision to try for the by-election into the State Duma from the University District. The former Yukos head once again showed his political ambitions, at that, in the form of real conditions for their implementation. The presidential administration thus had a tough dilemma: whether to let Khodorkovsky run the by-election. The complexity of this choice implied either minimization of risks or maximization of preferences. In case Khodorkovsky ran the election, it was possible to create the proper conditions for him to fail and thus kill his political ambitions for good. The presidential administration could interpret his defeat on the election as a negative perception of Khodorkovsky in the eyes of the population, which meant he would have to leave the political scene. However, this variant of events required attracting significant resources and subtle political technologies. At that, the danger that he could win the election maintained, which would show the opulence of his political ambitions. The elections from the University District are easy to control because this does not require too many people. Thus, the presidential administration did not want to accept the challenge from Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The decision on Khodorkovsky was taken coming out of the least dangerous strategy of the power: he was not allowed to run the election. On September 22, the Moscow City Court considered the appeal from Khodorkovsky, and the verdict took legal effect. The reading of Khodorkovsky’s appeal in two-week’s time was one of the central themes for the political process of Russia. Mikhail Khodorkovsky tried to delay the court. He refused from the lawyers appointed for him, his defenders Genrikh Padva and Yuri Schmidt did not show up at the court sessions for various reasons. The court tried its best to advance the reading of the appeal. The fight between Khodorkovsky and the power, represented by the court, ended to the power’s favor: despite all the obstacles, including the prank phone call stating there was a bomb planted in the court hall, the discussion of the appeal was over September 22. The haste was reasoned also by the fact that September 22 was the expiration date of the one of prosecution items – illegal privatization of NIIUIF. The Moscow City Court reduced Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s sentence from 9 to 8 years. Such decision is explained by the will to demonstrate the objectivity of the court inside Russia and abroad.
Redistribution of functions: another failure of the administrative reform. The administrative reform was aimed to split the power authority into three levels: ministries, federal service, and federal agencies. Each department had to fulfill specific functions. The ministries had to create the ‘rules of the game’ in their fields, they were the legislative initiative producers. The federal services had to fulfill the supervisory functions, the federal agencies – provide services and run property. Each department had to control each other. In reality, such redistribution failed. The most influential officials managed to insist on extension of their functions and turn their departments into ‘ministries’ in the form that they used to have before the start of the reform.
The most effective ones became the ministries, whose managers were the influential positional players and professionals in their field. Such included the Ministry of Communications and Informational Technologies and the Ministry of Education Science. Leonid Reiman, who heads the Communications Ministry, managed to select professionals to his ministry, who fulfilled his instructions sharp. As an experienced player and a specialist in his field, he also has a big advantage due to his personal friendship with the president. As a result, his ministry is quite effective.
Andrei Fursenko, who heads the Ministry of Education and Science also managed to adjust his ministry to work well. He used to work in the science field for a long time and is aware of many problems from the inside. As in Reiman’s case, his resource is the old friendship with Putin and support from Yuri Kovalchuk, who is one of the president’s financiers. Thus, Fursenko has a chance to realize practically all his own initiatives. The next proof his large political weight was the meeting of the government on September 22. During the discussion of the education reform, Andrei Fursenko once again came out with a firm position. The plans of the Education and Science Ministry met no opposition in the Cabinet, while the discontent of the Russian colleges’ rectors troubles Fursenko no more.
Against the background of the Education Ministry, the situation in the Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications seems to be disastrous. Chief of the Culture Ministry Alexander Sokolov belongs to one of the least effective officials. He entered the government early during the administrative reform. Sokolov failed to establish the management vertical in the ministry for over 18 months. Discussions of the further development of culture always provoke scandals in the government. On September 21, deputy chief of the Government Staff Mikhail Kopeikin heavily criticized the work of Alexander Sokolov and claimed that the Culture Ministry was likely to lose some of the budget allotments.
Cherkesov: movies as positional weapon. Siloviki can be divided into the radical and the moderate part. The periphery of the ‘radicals’ subgroup has director of the Federal Service for Control over Illegal Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Traffic Victor Cherkesov. Cherkesov chose a model of the positional struggle based on the powerful informational actions. Employees of his Federal Service become the heroes of many movies that have been filmed of late. The latest example can be the movie titled ‘Men Season: the Velvet Revolution’, in which fighters on drug dealers cut short a global drug cartel. The movie depicts the tough conditions, in which Cherkesov’s employees work, their selflessness executing goals. The movie’s budget appeared to be close to the record budgets of the Russian movies. Besides, another propaganda work is being filmed – comedy Anti-Folly, the main hero in which will also be an employee of Cherkesov’s service.
The energies of Cherkesov in the movie industry is aimed at creating a positive image of his service. At the same time, it might create an illusion of high capacity of its work, which should add Cherkesov some positional weight. Cherkesov is trying to show that he fulfills the functions of constructing and popularizing ideology in side his service. Particularly, there is an elaborated part in the movie ‘Men Seasons: the Velvet Revolution’ that discloses that USA supports drug traffic to Russia, Asia, and Europe. It is important for Cherkesov to find his niche in the grouping that will allow him to take a more active part in the processes of resources’ redistribution.
SPS keeps failing to cope with its various problems. The gathering that was held September 24 had to solve several issues in SPS that could partially compensate for the erroneous choice of the leader. The main goal of the gathering was the renovation of the party structure so that SPS could become an organization that can react to the new challenges of the political life fast. The decisions’ taking process is rather complicated; many members of the party often give different estimations to the events happening, which impairs the ideological work.
Besides the leader problem, there are also the issues of vertical mobility inside the party. The former structure implied limited opportunities for the nomination of new leaders because this jeopardizes redistribution of benefits inside the party. At that, SPS administration still sticks to the tactic of preserving the party’s elite. Until the problem is solved, SPS will not be able to improve its effectiveness.
The Union of Right Forces is so far losing to its rivals in the youth field. Since 2005, Yabloko has been developing its youth wing, the leader of which Ilya Yashin sometimes appeared more frequently in the mass media than Yavlinsky. SPS, however, so far failed to create a fully-fledged youth structure, although the gathering of Youth SPS has already been held. Such state of affairs is because the party’s administration fears the arrival of ‘young wolves’, who will carry out excessive expansion of the party. At that, SPS leaders attempted to catch up the missed chance by attracting an exterior youth structure: they had an idea to include the informal leader of Da! movement Maria Gaidar into the first three of SPS list for the election to the Moscow City Duma. Eventually, this did not happen. Now, SPS needs to proceed to establishment of a full-fledged youth wing, or the party will not stand a chance in the tough competition in the rightist wing.
United Russia – the apple of discord between siloviki and ‘old Moscow’. The victory of the presidential administration was marked with the replacement of the UR administration in spring 2005. The presidential administration practically introduced direct management over United Russia. First, two resignations were forced: Valery Bogomolov from the post of general council secretary and chief of the central executive committee Yuri Volkov, who were replaced Vyacheslav Volodin and Andrei Vorobiev respectively. Thus, the ‘old Moscow’ launched cadre cleaning of the United Russia’s administration.
The replacement of the UR’s top administration continued, and on May 25 2005, during the gathering of the high council bureau and the presidium of the general council, four of the party’s central election committee deputy heads were fired – Yuri Chaplin, Konstantin Shipunov, Vladimir Medinsky and Evgeni Trofimov. The only deputy chief of the CEC, who remained and was even promoted to the senior deputy was Viktor Abramov. He is the party’s financier and a trusted person of Emergency Ministry Chief Sergei Shoigu, who is a member of the party’s high council and has ‘old Moscow’ roots.
A compensation for the loss of control over the United Russia for siloviki was the appointment of Yuri Volkov as the vice speaker of the State Duma. Siloviki are trying to restore their positive, however, they lack one of the key resources for that – managers of the party field that could replace the presidential administration’s technologists. The siloviki part of the elite is trying to grow its party managers inside the party structures. Employees of the federal security service (FSB) that are currently monitoring political parties, especially the youth movements, can start shoving the presidential administration from taking decisions on basic interior issues.
