It’s been a month since President Medvedev’s visit to Silicon Valley and burger lunch with President Obama. And almost a year since Medvedev’s “Forward Russia!” speech introducing his modernization efforts at diversifying the economy and promoting home grown technology.
Despite Medvedev’s words and perhaps good intentions, his plans to reduce the police force have stalled and his executive order ending pre-trial detention for economic charges ignored by the courts. All of this points to his “non-leadership” as Pavel Baev points out in the Eurasia Daily Monitor.
There is a strong demand for “for-of-the-same” in the welfare-oriented society and in the predatory bureaucracy, so Putin’s message is conveyed easily–and his authority unshakeable. Medvedev’s discourse of “modernization” remains foreign, and his attempts to encourage innovations are treated with the same ironic indifference as Nikita Khrushchev’s orders to introduce corn after his “historic” visit to the US in 1959. Medvedev is often reduced to complaining about the sabotage of his orders, which only signals to bureaucrats opposed to modernization that real executive power remains out of his grasp.
Civil liberties of different kinds depend on each other and Medvedev’s initiatives have had little effect on shifting Russian into a more open society.
The Russian Interior Ministry today reported that bribes have doubled since last year to $1,320 per occurence on average. And overall, the Russian economy leaks $300 billion as the result of bribes. With only 10% going to rank-and-file policemen, that leaves a large chunk of change for provincial and Kremlin authorities.
And what could Russia do with an extra $300 billion in its coffers? Repair infrastructure, for sure, invest in alternative fuels or new techonologies, reducing its dependence on foreign investment to diversify the economy or perhaps postpone the largest state asset sale since the early 1990s.
Corruption remains pervasive and the current power structure is unwilling to kill the golden goose. Sergey Magnitsky died in pre-trial detention for refusing to renounce corruption activities of senior Kremlin officials. With much fanfare, Medvedev launched an investigation into his untimely death, but the investigation has stalled. According to Valery Borshchev, head of the government oversight panel responsible for the investigation into Mr. Magnitsky’s death,
They’re dragging their feet because some very important figures are implicated
Aleksei Dymovsky, the YouTube policeman, whose video galvanized a country inured to corruption spoke about his new quest to raise a grassroots campaign against corruption. He knows it won’t be easy as someone who participated in the pyramid corruption scheme that required police officers to hand off that day’s bribes to a “cashier,” a senior member of the police force. Those who didn’t comply were reprimanded.
The dubious charges against Russia’s mobile phone king, Yevgeny Chichvarkin show how hard it is for companies to do business in Russia, even domestic ones. The problems started for Chichvarkin in 2006 when he refused to pay bribes in order to prepare his accounting books for an initial public offering in London. His refusal resulted in the confiscation of $20 million of Motorola phones and the current charges against him. Motorola was his largest corporate partner and suffered huge losses when Department K, the interior ministry’s economic crimes division, released false warnings about the safety of their mobile phones. Motorola’s market share has dropped from 20% in 2006 to less than 1% where it is today.
Cisco has pledged a $1 billion investment in Skolkovo but John Chambers should have scratched Russia’s surface a little deeper.
