As rigged parliamentary elections provoked an outcry across the globe, Russian citizens have risen up to demand accountability from their leaders, writes Pavel Khodorkovsky, son of jailed former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in the World Policy Journal.
The protest movement is Russian through and through, Khodorkovsky explains, not provoked by an outside source. It’s a movement that he expects will only gain momentum as the nation heads toward a spring presidential election.
Today’s Bloomberg article details Jamison Firestone’s revelation that Russian Interior Ministry officials tried to collect $21 million in taxes using forgery and theft. The method the government officials used were similar to the expropriation in the Hermitage Capital case through taxes. In April 2009 and again in October 2009, Firestone filed complaints with the tax authorities and the General Prosecutor’s office but neither offices responded.
Russia’s issues with government, institutionalized corruption is well-known. Ranked 146th in Transparency International’s 2009 Corruption Perception Index is having a real financial effect on the Russian economy. According to data by EPFR Global,
Perceived lack of law is one reason Russia has attracted less than one-fifth the investment in China and Brazil and half of what’s invested in India, its fellow members of the so-called BRIC group of emerging nations.
Firestone supported this assertion with,
Corrupt law enforcement is the single biggest risk to business in Russia.
At last September’s Committee for Russian Economic Freedom event in New York, Firestone had this to say about the rule of law in Russia.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
On Thursday, January 14th the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is hearing the case of YUKOS Oil Company v. Russian Federation, the first time in six years of litigation that both sides will meet face-to-face in a legal battle on the Russian authorities expropriation of YUKOS and its assets beginning in 2003. Foreign policy and Russian officials have acknowledged that the imprisonment of YUKOS’s CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky was due to political reasons stemming from his support of opposition parties.
Meanwhile, the Rusal continues on its IPO path, even as more doubts about the process have surfaced. Its controlling shareholder Oleg Deripaska continues to be linked to organized crime, was refused a visa to enter the United States on those grounds and has received millions in government money funnelled through Russian state-run Vnesheconombank (VEB), controlled by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
