THE PASSAGE FROM THE ELECTION TO THE APPOINTMENT OF GOVERNORS
“ The deprivation of the citizens of Russia of their electoral rights: passage from the election to the appointment of governors. This is a State coup, the destruction of the federative state,” the nazbols accuse Putin in their leaflet.
The National-Bolsheviks entered the reception room of the president’s administration with their peaceful petition calling for president Putin to resign on December 14th 2004 and on December 3rd, 11 days before the nazbols’ action, the State Duma adopted a law introduced by the president about the new order of electing the governors. The law was voted by 358 deputies (with the necessary minimum of 226 votes), 62 were against and two abstained.
According to the new law the governor’s elections were replaced by the confirmation of the regions’ heads by the local legislative assemblies according to the president’s presentation. The RF president Putin introduced the law bill into the state Duma himself at the end of September. It is a part of an anti-terrorism package, about which Putin told right after the hostage taking in Beslan and the two airplanes crashes in August. From now on the candidacy of a head of region is introduced by the president 35 days before the expiration of the actual governor’s mandate and during 14 days the regional parliament must take a decision. In case the regional parliament rejects a candidacy twice the president has the right to introduce the candidacy again and in case it is rejected he has the right to dissolve the regional parliament and appoint a provisional governor. (The governors elected directly by the people before this law comes into force can call for a vote of confidence before the president.) President Putin promised not to overstep the constitution. However if the elected provincial princes had the right to occupy their post during two mandates at most, the appointed ones will govern until they are called off. Actually, “the president’s loss of confidence” is sufficient to call them off.
On December 11th, three days before the nazbols entered the administration’s reception room, Putin signed the law and it came into force. In real fact this law comes down to a constitutional amendment: the heads of the 89 Russian regions directly elected until now are appointed by the Kremlin and only confirmed by the regional parliaments. The independent deputy Vladimir Rizhkov has called the law “extremely disgusting”. He made a parallel with the law that granted extraordinary powers to Hitler in 1933. According to Rizhkov, the new law is “an offense to the electors”.
It is interesting to note that article 83 of the Constitution clearly states the president’s powers and according to the actual constitution the president does not have the right to appoint or remove governors, there are no such powers in article 83. Thus, the law adopted on December 3rd and that came into force on December 11th 2004 contradicts the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The law adopted by the State Duma on December 3rd also violates Russia’s federative system. After all in our federative system with 89 federation subjects the population elects the head of the federation subject. The appointment of governors is the prerogative of a unitary State. In all, according to experts, the law about the appointment of governors violates not one but over ten articles of the Constitution.
Naturally, Putin’s group welcomed its new law and adopted it in the State Duma. The deputy head of the president’s administration V. Surkov explained, “the new order of appointing governors will increase the solidity reserve of our political system.” And adapts “the State mechanism to the extreme conditions of an undeclared war.” What he means is of course the fight with terrorism; under the pretext of this “war” they have deftly palmed off an authoritarian law on the confused society, easily violating the Constitution. What concerns the qualification of the law about the appointment of governors as an anti-terrorist law, of course it is a provocative lie. After all terrorism is exported in the Russian regions right from where the heads of administration are presently appointed by the Kremlin. This is the Chechen republic, where first Akhmad Kadirov was “elected” and now the general Alu Alkhanov, a Putin protégé governs there. This is Ingushetia where Putin, by hook or by crook, by pressuring other candidates, has put the FSB general Murat Zyazikov at the head of the republic.
Finally, I should remind that article 11 of the Constitution states: “The State power in the subjects of the Russian Federation is executed by the bodies of State power they have created.” They, i.e. the subjects, and not president Putin, who thus has broke up with the Constitution.
The same day, on December 3rd 2004 the State Duma did another shameful action: it adopted a law that pursues the reform of the political system in Russia, – according to its authors, but in reality – that definitely destroys politics in Russia. They have adopted the law about increasing the minimal number of party members from 10 to 50 thousand people. According to the new law, in over a half of the RF subjects a political party has to have 500 or more members in its regional departments. In the rest of its regional departments there has to be 250 people and more.
Without any doubt these demands are the excessive demands of a police regime for making it impossible for the RF citizens to realize their constitutional rights, precisely: they violate the rights guaranteed to the RF citizens by part 1 of article 30 of the RF Constitution.
Together with the already existing laws limiting the electoral rights of the citizens, including the law “On political parties”, “The law on public associations”, the law on the complete transfer to a proportional electoral system, when only parties have the right to participate in the elections and also the fixed 7% barrier to pass into the State Duma, Putin’s group has executed the complete destruction of politics in Russia. Such a malicious control of the State over politics does not exist anywhere in the world, in the West or in the East. Nowhere in the world do we find a law that demands that a party has 50 thousand members to be registered. I will give only two examples to illustrate the crude violation of the citizens’ rights. From 104 to 108 millions voters are registered for each election in the RF. 7% percent of this number makes over 8 million voters. And now, by the Kremlin’s will a political party that has received, for example, 7,5 million votes will not be represented in the country’s parliament. 7,5 million citizens will not be represented. But many European countries have a much smaller population! A second example: a voter has lost his deputy. He will not be able anymore to vote for a candidate non-affiliated to a party. He is proposed to vote for a party list, of which he will know three names at best. And the conditions of registering a party were so harshened by the law adopted by the State Duma on December 3rd that the number of political parties who got into the State Duma, already small enough (on the 2003 elections four parties got into the State Duma: United Russia, Rodina, CPRF and LDPR) will decrease to three, two or one on the 2007 elections. Thus, the law adopted on December 3rd 2004 about the minimal number of party members is simply crossing out politics in Russia. It’s over. It does not exist anymore. The national-bolsheviks have felt right: what happened on December 3rd practically removes the electoral rights of Russia’s citizens.
One should realize that during Yeltsin’s era, especially in the last 1996-1999 years, Russian politics were squeezed and swallowed by the State. Thus, for example, the participation or the non-participation of political parties in the elections depended from two State institutions: from the ministry of justice and the central electoral commission. Both institutions were and are the instruments of a gang that took the power and were never neutral; they were always engaged on the side of the party in power. The justice ministry used every trick and device in order to avoid registering a different party. However only the absence of such a registration did not allow the party to participate in the elections to the country’s parliament. A clear example of that is the NBP. The National-Bolshevik Party tried to register (because it has spread nationally and had organizations in 47 RF regions) already in October 1998. However we were denied registration five times since then, on the base of a “moral judgment”, made in 1998 by the justice minister Krashennikov. The judgment was not at all caused by our deeds and actions, but by the suspicions, which the political organization caused by its young members. The suspicions of the parties in power – the owners of the “Justice ministry” company – were best expressed by their representative – an old alcoholic with a red face. After he exhausted his argumentation he finally said: “Well, look at them, there are lots of them, over five thousand, all young; we don’t know what to expect from them”.
The NBP did not manage to get over the bastions of the justice ministry. All these years we lived with the status of the inter-regional public association “National-Bolshevik Party”. From 2001 the FSB tried to take this status away from us. Finally they succeeded. On 06.29.05 Moscow’s district court ruled positively about the liquidation of NBP and its exclusion from the United State Registry of juridical persons. We addressed the Supreme Court. Suddenly the Supreme Court canceled the decision of Moscow’s district court. Surprise! It seemed that justice would finally triumph.
Actually, our joy did not last. The Prosecutor General immediately protested the decision. On October 5th the Supreme Court held a session. I described it in the article “Who are the judges?” in our party’s newspaper. I will cite here most of the article: “The guards in galloons warned the audience to stand up and one after another, eleven judges appeared from the back door, all in black gowns. They sat along a long table. Then they let the press: four TV cameras, many photographers; 20-25 people in all and almost immediately told them to go. The reporting judge started his report. One got the impression that he doesn’t know the material of the case. Lebedev interrupted him several times, telling him to shorten his speech. Then the prosecutor started to criticize the NBP, repeating the old lie: they were not reporting about their activities, did not register the amendments to their code and also mentioned that many Party members were condemned for protests, although this did not figure in the case’s materials. After he finished barking the prosecutor sat down.
Then our lawyer Vitaly Varivod spoke. Vitaly’s speech was short and clear. Then I spoke. I got up and read out a text I have written the night before. I cite it, omitting the beginning: ‘The prosecution’s demand should not be satisfied for the following motives: 1. From 2001 the Prosecutor General made several attempts to liquidate the NBP. It was the head of FSB’s department of investigation, general-lieutenant S. D. Balashov who gave the first impulse to these attempts. His letter, addressed to the first deputy Prosecutor General U. S. Biryukov with a demand to organize the liquidation of the National Bolshevik Party is contained in the criminal case Number 171 (accusing me and five of my comrades on four articles of the criminal code: 205th, 208th, 222nd and 280th), volume 1, pages 76-78, document number 6/3-2770 on 07.23.01. It is significant that the liquidation demand was declared on the first stage of the investigation. The trial over case Number 171 began only a year later – on 07.04.02, while the sentence was made only on 04.15.03. The court’s sentence freed my comrades and me from the accusations on the articles completely and thus completely refuted the accusations made by Balashov, when he demanded the liquidation of the NBP. However, despite the fact that the investigation was only beginning then, the Prosecutor General obediently made a report to the FSB. I cite page 79 of the first volume of this criminal case. V. Y. Golishev, deputy chief of the Prosecutor General’s surveillance department is answering Balashov. The date is 09.03.01. the document’s number is 7/2-2053-01: ‘Your message about the illegal activities of the NBP was examined. Moscow’s department of the justice ministry has filed a suit against this association on 07.11.01. demanding to exclude this association from the state registry of juridical persons. The civil case is in the production of the Moscow district court and a hearing is fixed for 09.18.01. Moscow’s prosecutor has to direct a demand about the liquidation of the NBP to the court before 09.11.01. The execution is taken under control.’
As you can see from these sources, the FSB and the Prosecutor General have taken an unlawful, prejudiced stance towards the NBP from the start; they tried to force the liquidation of a political party, using the administrative resource. The Prosecutor General and the justice ministry did everything the FSB ordered them. However the district court did not rule in favor of the FSB then. The suit of Moscow’s department of the justice ministry was declined by the district court. And the Supreme Court confirmed the decision of Moscow’s district court back in 2001.
I will not linger on all the episodes and vicissitudes of the attempts of Moscow’s Prosecutor General and Moscow’s department of the justice ministry to execute the demand of the FSB and liquidate the NBP. I will only note that the decision about the liquidation of the NBP, taken on 06.29.05. by Moscow’s district court was made under the enormous pressure of the same forces that initiated the first attempts of the NBP liquidation back in July 2001. These forces, namely the FSB and the Prosecutor General are not popular among our people today and are justly considered to be the instruments of political violence against differently thinking individuals and parties. The Supreme Court took a just decision on August 16th 2005 and the RF judicial corporation can be proud of it. It has ceased the abuse.
2. Presently there are 35 thousand members in the NBP. Thus, the deputy Prosecutor General Zvyagintzev demands to take away the right to create and participate in a public association from 35 thousand people, i.e. he demands to the Supreme Court to violate the Constitution.
3. Zvyagintzev points out in his handing-in: ‘After the organization stops its activities it must remove the violations of the legislation. The NBP did not do that.’ As the NBP chairman I declare that we fulfilled all the demands, in particular we changed the name of our organization, excluding the word ‘party’ from it and we also changed our legal address; we excluded the right to advance deputies from our Code. Three times we made attempts to register the changes in documents. These changes were not registered by Moscow’s department of the justice ministry, as demonstrated by the written refusals on 09.16.03, 07.14.04. and 07.07.05. These decisions were made on such insignificant grounds that there could be no other conclusion than to ascertain: Moscow’s department of the justice ministry refuses to register the changes made by the NBP on purpose. By the hands of the Prosecutor General Zvyagintzev is trying to make the Supreme Court join the political violence, the repressions that are constantly used against the NBP.
4. The Russian society has noticed the excessive cruelty of the power (because the FSB, the Prosecutor General and the justice ministry are all instruments of the power) towards the NBP members. I will cite here the testimony of the Izvestia newspaper on December 3rd of this year. The ‘editor’s opinion’ is stated in the following words: ‘For those who follow the trials of the Limonovists, nothing surprising happened. The Russian legal machine has been grinding the lives of this youth organization’s members with a special cruelty since a long time.’ And further: ‘Someone doesn’t like the Limonovists very much. Someone wants them to receive the maximum punishment.’ And also: ‘It’s been a long time that the power is excessively harsh towards the Limonovists. Only now everybody has noticed this.’ I ask you to note that this is not the opinion of a single journalist, but a whole journalistic collectivity. This is also how the society of the Russian Federation thinks.
5. Let’s call a spade a spade, casting aside the euphemism ‘liquidation’. We have a disgusting result: the ban on a political organization is being forced. This ban, if the Surpeme Court will support it will expose Russia and present it as a country of State repressions against differently thinking political parties. Doubtlessly this ban will make a bad impression on Russia and other countries’ public. And such a decision, if the Supreme Court decides to initiate it and, God forbid, support the prosecutor General in its striving to liquidate the NBP, will damage the reputation of Russia’s legal corporation in general and the reputation of the Supreme Court in particular. I have studied both the Roman law and Napoleon’s Code; I respect the notion of ‘Law’. This is a high and honorable notion, the best in humanity’s organization; this is a Law that limits brutality and bestial instincts. I would have liked that the Russian courts and in particular the Supreme Court were a mighty and self-sufficient corporation. The people believe that the Prosecutor General is not self-sufficient today. I beg you not to yield to the pressure of the Prosecutor General.
6. The decision about the liquidation of the NBP will lead to unpredictable consequences. It will force it to go underground. On party conferences that were just held in July and September the secretaries of the executive committees of the NBP regional organizations have unanimously spoke in favor of continuing the activities of the National-Bolshevik Party even after the decision to liquidate it.
Now, in short, my arguments.