Politics in Russia: power, lobby, conflicts. Issue No (37) 673

September 3 - 9, 2007

Main political trends of the week

Despite the official start of the parliament election campaign last week government players were on their toes. A possible explanation for this is the expectation of soon discharge of the cabinet of ministers and consecutive redistribution of authority in the executive branch.

The format of the competition between the «successors» finally changed last week. According to the new «rules of the game» Sergei Ivanov is absolute leader, who accompanies President Vladimir Putin during his trips across the country and acts as his understudy.

Party life last week was also tied with the reformation of power. Earlier reports that skater Svetlana Zhurova would appear among the top three candidates in The United Russia’s election ticket were refuted, which once again spurred discussions about UR-nominated successor and the third candidate in the «power party’s» ticket. Delay with the issue of the presidential decree setting election date was to help UR deal with the time trouble it had gotten itself into thank to late pre-election gathering. The main intrigue of the upcoming election will be not the contest of parties but attendance of voters, which must be high for the election results’ to look legit. Incidentally, despite the official start of the Duma campaign, practically all candidates for parliament mandates still haven’t decided on their first three candidates in the ticket.

The Just Russia’s troubles continued to grow – last week several State Duma deputies in the JR’s parliament faction said they would exit the party as protest against the inclusion of former LDPR deputy Aleksei Mitrofanov into the party’s ticket. Besides that, two donors of the party – Alexander Lebedev and Alexander Babakov – are in struggle.

Competition between government players has become quite chaotic. Yuri Chaika’s attack on Investigation Committee Chief Alexander Bastrykin – namely the razzmatazz around the «Politkovskaya case» – flopped. Practically all Chaika’s protégés, particularly Head of the GPO’s Investigation Division Sergei Ivanov, were not accepted into the new office, in which heads of the key departments have not been appointed yet.

Rather curious is the alignment of forces in the Rosnanotech corporation. The names of director general and members of the supervisory board were announced last week. Apart from the representatives of the Russia Bank the Nanotechnology Corporation Supervisory Board included Herman Gref and a representative of his ally – Head of the President’s Expert Office Arkadi Dvorkovich. Anatoly Chubais’s protégé Leonid Melamed assumed director general post. However, most likely this «diversity of colors» will not spur a conflict because Melamed has business ties with Sergei Kiriyenko, who in turn partners with the Russia Bank owners.

Last week it was rumored that the head of the Financial Market Monitoring Agency (Rosfinmonitoring) Viktor Zubkov would be fired, his tenure expired almost 12 months ago. This time watchers predict that he will be appointed head of the financial markets and money circulation committee in the Federation Council. This position should soon become vacant because its incumbent chief Sergei Vasiliyev is moving to the Development Bank.

Major events Sep 03, 2007- Sep 09, 2007

Volume: 17 pages