In the article, I yet again drew the attention of the public and the state authorities to the need for change in the electoral system:
Our electoral system needs not mere adjustment but a complete overhaul. It is essential that there should be changes in the organization of both the presidential elections and the Duma elections, and of the way governors are elected.
As the top priority, I would list the need to return to a mixed voting system, with both proportional voting for party lists and direct election of independent candidates. People should be able to know the particular candidates and choose between them. After the Duma elections in December 2007, 113 top candidates on the lists of successful parties did not take up their mandate as deputies but simply handed them on to little-known people. But 113 seats is just one-quarter of the total! What sort of disregard for the voters is that? We need also to lower the minimum percentage of the overall vote required for a party to be admitted to the Duma to 5 per cent.
I think direct election of governors should be restored, instead of as now having them nominated by the president and confirmed by the regional legislative bodies.
At times I said this more bluntly than in the official government newspaper, remarking that United Russia was turning into a mediocre copy of the CPSU. I was constantly hearing that this was irritating many in power, and worse. The new generation of functionaries wanted an easy life and had no inclination to take criticism on board. Instead of considering how to restore their purpose and democratic nature to elections, what was hatched in offices and meetings in the Kremlin was ‘political technology’ to develop new ways of emasculating elections and perpetrating outright fraud, as was to be demonstrated in all its glory in 2011.
In spring 2008, I saw two things as supremely important. The first was for the new president to make a good start, quickly gaining experience and confidence. The second was for Russia to have a strong, rejuvenated government. On 7 May I attended the inauguration of President Medvedev. I shared my impressions with ITAR-TASS’s correspondent. About Medvedev I said: ‘I am increasingly confident he will cope.’ I saw him as ‘a man who wants to keep in touch, to listen and hear what Russians are saying. I would very much like that to be at the heart of his work in the four years allotted to him as president.’ I saw his main task as being to mobilize the executive branch: ‘That is very difficult but very important, and the most awkward problem is the staffing and the way all the institutions perform from local to federal level. It is equally important when the government and the president’s secretariat are being appointed.’ If Medvedev and Putin could cope with that, I said, new perspectives would open up for Russia.
Of course, everybody was curious to see how the cooperation would work out between the new president and now only Prime Minister Putin. Their relationship started being described as a ‘tandem’. I knew there were people in the teams of both leaders whose efforts were directed not at facilitating cooperation but at weakening or torpedoing it. All sorts of talk was flying around immediately after it was announced that Putin would become prime minister. I had no doubt this politicking could be disastrous. I wished Medvedev and Putin every success in their joint endeavours.
I am satisfied there was no contradiction between my criticism of the election and my support for the new president and prime minister after it. I was guided by my principles, while taking account of the interests of Russia and the requirements of political culture.
Ideas and people
Much, although by no means everything, depended on the composition of the government. Judging by what we learned from the media, the process of forming it proved far from easy. At the same time, the outlines of the new government’s economic policy had to be agreed. What would it be like? In June, the Gorbachev Foundation hosted a discussion on just this topic, with the participation of such authoritative economists as Ruslan Grinberg, Alexander Nekipelov, Vladislav Inozemtsev, Alexander Auzan and Yevgeny Gontmakher. Everybody agreed it was essential to overcome the legacy of failure from the 1990s, and that time was of the essence.
There was a question of priorities: should Russia use advanced technology already available in the West and redirect some of the ‘oil money’ to purchasing it, or should we rely on our own programmes of innovation? The majority believed we should do both, because if we failed to end the economy’s dependence on natural resource exports and make it innovative in the near future, there would never be another chance. We would succeed only in propping up a backward economy.
Another point made was that a major obstacle to an economy of innovation was the backwardness of our social sectors, particularly education and healthcare, and our worsening social stratification. The economists identified the backwardness of state institutions as the main drag on modernization: the legislature, law-enforcement agencies and judiciary, and the lack of effective separation of powers of the branches of government, with an uncontrolled bureaucracy absolutely dominant. This was offered as a serious warning. Would the state authorities be prepared to tackle these problems seriously?
This discussion was taking place only a few months before, first in the United States and then globally, a financial and economic crisis broke that shook the world economy and did not leave Russia unscathed. We shall discuss it below, but for the time being I will say only that at the time neither our people nor the vast majority of economists in other countries predicted anything of the sort. Economics does not yet have trustworthy tools for analysing and assessing many economic processes, including some that are dangerous.
Meanwhile, the process of forming a government was accomplished, and certain indications raised my hopes of changes for the better. In an interview for Interfax I said: ‘When people came up with good ideas in the past, I always said what worried me was who was going to see them through. It seems to me, though, that the government is changing, and for the better. Perhaps I am wrong: time will tell.’ I liked a speech made at the St Petersburg Economic Forum by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. His name was new to me, and some of his ideas were unexpected and held out the promise of a new approach. Of course, I added, behind any reforms, ‘we must not overlook the social impact, the very people on whose behalf everything is done… We do not want the innovation bandwagon to turn into another “great leap forward” followed, as tends to be the case in Russia, by a great crash.’
The research and discussions at the Gorbachev Foundation continued to provide much food for thought. They were highly respected by experts. I was delighted with Academician Tatiana Zaslavskaya’s review of Social Inequality and Public Policy, the result of many years of research conducted at the Foundation under the direction of my ally from the Perestroika years, Vadim Medvedev.[1] Zaslavskaya wrote that the book was ‘devoted to the principal social problem facing Russia. Until it is resolved, the country is unlikely to be able to take its rightful place in the international community.’ Here is her characterization of the situation in the country resulting from the ‘reforms’ of the 1990s:
In effect, two social classes coexist today on the territory of Russia. One, relatively small, consists of healthy, free, properly educated and extremely wealthy citizens who enjoy full civic rights. This new court nobility live in a special world they have built just for themselves. They have an exclusive habitat, way, quality and style of life. The second class, however, vastly more numerous, is the bulk of the population, struggling to earn a living. The majority of these are low-income, less educated people with limited rights. They do not enjoy particularly good health, do not receive essential medical care, and are fated to have what, by modern standards, is a short lifespan.[2]
1
Vadim A. Medvedev et al., eds,
2
Tat’iana A. Zaslavskaia,