Russia 111005 Basic Political Developments

Putin aide woos Russia's middle-class voters

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/05/us-russia-putin-spokesman-idUSTRE79409720111005
Tue, Oct 4 2011

By Gleb Bryanski

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is seeking to build bridges with middle class voters disillusioned by the near certain prospect of his return to the Kremlin after 2012 presidential elections.

Twice within a week Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov has appeared on television stations favored by intellectuals and Russia's burgeoning middle class in an effort to persuade them that their views will be heard, should Putin win March polls.

Putin, Russia's paramount leader even in the lesser post of prime minister, is expected to easily win a March presidential poll after President Dmitry Medvedev's decision to stand aside in favor of his mentor.

Most expect Putin to be in the Kremlin for 12 years, serving two six-year terms.

As prime minister, Putin has continued to cultivate the macho, action man image he cultivated in his 2000-2008 stint as president, leaving Dmitry Medvedev, his hand-picked successor in the Kremlin, to court middle class intellectuals.

"It is impossible not to take their opinion into account. It would have been absurd. And we have some explaining to do," Peskov told the pro-opposition Rain cable television station, which is popular among educated urban viewers.

Russia's nascent middle class is less enamored with Putin's rule and liken the prospect of a second Putin stint in the Kremlin to the period of stagnation under Soviet ruler Leonid Brezhnev, which ultimately led to the collapse of the USSR.

Many middle class Russians felt betrayed when Medvedev, whose agenda in office included modernization of the economy, fighting corruption and liberalization of political life, decided not to run for president in 2012.

The disgruntled middle class pose a potential danger for the Russian rulers in the longer term as they can evolve into protest movements.

Peskov said Putin had yet to outline the main elements of his election program, but it would "show that Putin should not be taken for the late Brezhnev."

However, he said that the gloom of the Moscow intelligentsia was not shared outside the capital.

"There are people who think that the atmosphere in the country is suffocating and it is time to escape to the banks of River Thames while others want three percentage points off their taxes to get their farm going," Peskov said.

"But we are all united by one goal -- we want our country to leap forward," he added, defending Putin's record in rebuilding the economy and fighting the country's worst economic crisis in a decade.

"We very much like to explain it to people who sit in expensive restaurants where there are no free tables left, eat expensive Italian meals costing 1,200 roubles ($36) per plate and fret about the fate of their country," Peskov said.

(Reporting By Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Jon Boyle)

RT News line, October 5

United Russia election list checked

http://rt.com/politics/news-line/2011-10-05/#id19637
The Russian Central Elections Commission on Wednesday approved the election list of the ruling United Russia party, a decision preceding registration. The list is headed by President Dmitry Medvedev and includes 599 people in 80 regional groups. More than 50 heads of regions were also included on the slate for the December parliamentary elections. United Russia is the final party to have its list checked by CEC. The Liberal Democratic Party is expected to be the first to have its slate registered on Wednesday.

‘OSCE biased in assessing elections’

http://rt.com/politics/election-democracy-observers-osce-035/
Published: 4 October, 2011, 18:09
Edited: 4 October, 2011, 18:13

The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) has no universal method for evaluating elections, believes the president of the All-Russia Public Institute for Election Law,Igor Borisov.

The ODIHR wants to send to Russia 60 observers for the pre-election period and 200 observers on a short-term mission to monitor the course of the election on December 4. The Central Election Commission says the figures are excessive.

ODIHR director Janez Lenarcic had earlier insisted on sending 450 representatives for the short mission.  Today, the figure is less than half the size, but Russia wants it to be reduced even more. 

“It’s a political question. The figure mentioned by Mr Lenarcic has no methodological justification behind it,” Borisov said. 

He added that in the absence of an appropriate method, neither 450, nor 250 nor 100 observers can objectively evaluate the election. 

At the same time, Igor Borisov hopes that a solution will be found. 

“It will be a political compromise,” he said. “I don’t know why, but Mr Lenarcic is not willing to make concessions and keeps saying that ‘there can be no bargaining.’ But it’s not bargaining but a question of a universal approach.” 

Borisov noted that Europe deliberately avoids universal standards in order to retain the ability to make a  “political maneuver in the assessment of national procedures.” 

He went on to say that Russia will accept the approach of CIS observers which, unlike that of the OSCE, is not politically motivated and is “based on objective joint documents.”

October 05, 2011 09:56

Russian Union of Journalists to expose crimes against reporters

http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=277897
MOSCOW. Oct 5 (Interfax) - The Russian Union of Journalists (RUJ) along with its foreign colleagues is opening a database about murders and persecutions of Russian journalists over the past few years.

"Not a single high-profile murder, which was taken under control by the country's top administration, was investigated, and I suspect, never will be," RUJ President Vsevolod Bogdanov said during the presentation of a new Internet resource.

Red tape hurdles in the investigation of such cases "are not a reason not to interfere in the situation," he said.

The Conflicts in Mass Media database, which is already publicly available on the Russian segment of the Internet, contains cases such as media censorship, as well as threats, attacks and murders of reporters since the beginning of this century, Bogdanov said

The information resource was created jointly with the International Federation of Journalists, Glasnost Defense Foundation and other Russian and foreign organizations, the RUJ chief said.

Hopefully, this base will allow not only to give an idea about the freedom of the press, but will also equip the authorities with information, President of the European Federation of Journalists Arne Konig said.

The Russian-language database is available at: www.mediaconflictsinrussia.org

kk

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01:54 05/10/2011ALL NEWS

Patriarch Kirill to chair Holy Synod session Wednesday

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/239864.html

MOSCOW, October 5 (Itar-Tass) — Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia will chair a session of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). The session opens here on Wednesday. The Holy Synod meets four times a year alternately in the Russian capital, in St Petersburg, and in Kiev where the latest session of the Synod was held.

This time the session will take place at the patriarchal residence in Chisty Pereulok (Clean Lane), the Patriarchate press service announced.

The hierarchs will discuss the current state of affairs in the Church.

As tradiiton has it, twelve archbishops headed by the Patriarch participate in the Synod proceedings. There are seven permanent members of the Synod who are vested with these powers depending on the significance of the bishopric or church organization which they head, and five temporary members.

The Primates of the Ukrainian, Moldovan, and Belarusian Churches, the Metropolitan of St Petersburg, the governor of the Moscow Region parishes, as well as the Chancellor of the Patriarchate and Head of the Department for Foreign Church Relations are Permanent Members of the Synod.

The heads of bishoprics from Uzbekistan, from the cities of Khabarovsk, Pyatigorsk, and Oryol, as well as from Ukraine -- Metropolitan Onufry of Chernovtsy and Bucovina -- have been invited to the "winter session" of the Synod. It is Metropolitan Onufry that, most likely, will represent the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, for the Church Primate, Metropolitan Vladimir, will not be able to attend owing to a broken leg.

It was precisely in Bucovina that Patriarch Kirill spent the first days of October, consecrating the main cathedral of a monastery near Chernovtsy and a monastic house for disabled children. The Primate of the ROC was greeted in that south-western region of Ukraine very warmly and cordially.

09:29 05/10/2011ALL NEWS

Cache with 40 kilos of TNT found in Chechnya

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/239956.html

MOSCOW, October 5 (Itar-Tass) — The cache with explosives was found in Chechnya, a source in the republican law enforcement agencies told Itar-Tass by phone on Wednesday.

“The police and servicemen of the military commandant’s office have found a cache with 40 kilograms of TNT on Tuesday in the forest near Beshal-Irzu in the Nozhai-Yurt district,” the source said.

The source of the explosives is being searched for.