“We’re currently formulating a suit in this regard,” Grigory Yavlinsky told journalists on Friday.

Earlier in the day, Yavlinsky received an official notice from the commission (TsIK) that he would not be allowed to run as a presidential candidate in the upcoming March election.

According to the TsIK, about 25 percent of the signatures on Yavlinsky’s petition had been falsified, well above the 5 percent permitted by Russian law. However, the party insists that the rejection was politically motivated.

On January 24, the newspaper Vedomosti reported that a source in the presidential administration said that Yavlinsky’s rejection was a “surprise” to the Kremlin. In addition, an anonymous source in the TsIK said that the number of bad signatures collected by other presidential candidates was about the same as Yavlinsky’s – this likely due to the difficulty of collecting 2 million signatures in the one-month time limit and the inability of candidates to oversee the work of all of their signature collectors.

According to political analyst Mikhail Tulsky, only 100,000 signatures were needed to run for president in 1991. In 1996 the number rose to 1 million, but candidates were given 3 months to collect them. It rose again to 2 million in 2004, with 7 percent falsified signatures allowed. Since 2007, that number dropped to 5 percent, and the length of time to collect them dropped to a month. Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who has recently successfully completed the registration process, denounced it as “dishonest” and “degrading.”

Vladimir Ryzhkov of the People’s Freedom Party said Biden was interested in Russian media censorship and the problems faced by opposition parties in registering to participate in elections.

Ryzhkov and fellow oppositionists Boris Nemtsov and Garry Kasparov told the vice president that sanctions should be imposed against Russian civil servants who have grossly violated human rights, including the people responsible for the death of Hermitage Capital Management lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and those involved in the prosecution of jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Other oppositionists at the meeting included Yabloko party leader Grigory Yavlinsky, Right Cause leader Leonid Gozman, Communist Party representative Nina Ostanina and A Just Russia representative Oksana Dmitrieva.

In discussing Russia’s domestic political situation, Yavlinsky pointed out that the most fundamental difficulties have been known for a long time – in particular, the lack of important democratic procedures, Yabloko’s press service told Kasparov.ru.

Yavlinsky said it was of upmost importance to solve the problem of how to replace the system created back in the ’90s – a much more far-reaching and difficult task than simply making personnel changes in the government. Moreover, the problem could only be resolved by Russian society, which needs to rely on its own strength more than anything else in this long and difficult effort, he said.

Biden also met with Russian human rights activists at an earlier meeting.

Memorial human rights center head Oleg Orlov told RIA Novosti that “questions about human rights and democratic development in Russia were seriously raised at the meeting.” Prominent rights activists Lev Ponomarev and Lyudmila Alexeyeva, he said, spoke about human rights abuses in Russia’s jails and the problems surrounding the organization of elections in the country.

Civil Assistance committee representative Svetlana Gannushkina “raised the topic of migration, which is a problem for both of our countries, and also talked about the commission represented by [US presidential assistant Michael] McFaul and [Kremlin ideologist Vladislav] Surkov,” Orlov said, referring to the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission.

The group also discussed the importance of observing human rights in the midst of the war on terrorism. “I spoke about human rights violations in the war on terrorism by both of our countries… Biden agreed with all of this,” Orlov went on.

An important signal for the rights advocates, he said, was when Biden said that advancing democracy, observing human rights and organizing free and fair elections were important to the US in regards to Russia’s chances of joining the World Trade Organization.

“[Biden] said that for Russia to enter the WTO, [the US] Congress would have to vote to annul the Jackson-Vanik amendment,” Orlov said. “Congress’s vote is only going to be positive if Russia advances fair elections and the establishment of democracy.”

The vice president also met with Yevgeniya Chirikova, leader of the Movement in Defense of the Khimki Forest. Chirikov explained the problems with the construction of the planned Moscow-St. Petersburg highway, which would cut through the forest, and Biden promised to raise the issue in talks with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He also awarded Chirikova with the prestigious International Women of Courage Award, which the US State Department says “recognizes women around the globe who have shown exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for women’s rights and empowerment, often at great personal risk.”

Week in Review. Interregnum.
Aleksandr Golts
Yezhednevny Zhurnal
March 14, 2008

The authority-filled city of Moscow has submerged into terrified consternation. No-one (with the exception of Medvedev and Putin) is sure of their own future. Everyone is straining to decipher the sounds coming from under the Kremlin rug. But nothing can be made out: maybe it’s moans of affection, and maybe deathbed wheezes. Why did Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] all of a sudden turn and jump on his best jester, Vladimir Volfovich [Zhirinovsky], such that the poor guy was driven to the hospital? Maybe the clown got boring, or maybe the president decided to show everyone who the real boss of the house was. And why was Grigory Yavlinsky granted an audience with “the man himself” all of a sudden? Maybe for no particular reason, or maybe they want to assign him some office? And what about this suggestion, which sounded from the highest lips, that corrupt officials should have their hands chopped off. Is this a joke, or a demonstration of a wish to drastically change the command team?

The most amusing thing to do in this situation is to keep an eye on those who impudently call themselves political analysts. For eight years, these guys have worked as the president’s interpreters, clearing up the brilliance of every decision V. V. Putin made for us mere mortals. Even recently, they reasoned on every television channel on how important and healthy it was that the active president named a successor and remained as his overseer. But ask any of them how the two-horned vertical [power] will function, or which bureaucrats –those from the presidential administration or from the Government –are now stronger, and they’ll just make a helpless gesture.

But why, why have our administrators stopped climbing the Mausoleum during holidays? Why have the newspapers long stopped publishing panoramic photographs of party plenary assemblies, with their 200-person general committees. If Soviet traditions had been preserved, then the “politologists” would have at least some factual basis for analysis. Using a magnifying glass, one could have determined the place of a specific bureaucrat in the existing hierarchy. But now one can only read fortunes from spent coffee grounds.

A very illustrative example is the regular meeting of the Izvestia [newspaper] “Politclub.” Most of the participants had nothing substantial to say, and torturously tried to squeeze out something pseudo-scientific. The quintessential brainwork of these same political analysts were the conclusions reached by Sergei Markov: “Regarding a diarchy, it’s most appropriate to speak of a two-fold center of power. And as to how the situation inside this two-fold center of power will develop, that’s still an open question. Will Dmitri Medvedev become the leader? This depends on two principal factors. First – on Dmitri Medvedev. Second – on Vladimir Putin… It depends on Vladimir Putin in the sense that no one knows, what he has decided on for himself.” Vasisuali Lohankin, [a character from a well-known Russian satirical comedy novel, the Golden Calf] is weeping.

Meanwhile, the present interregnum period is extremely interesting and important for the country’s future. The authors of the Constitution apparently had the American model in mind when they wrote that the president must assume office two months after the election. So, it was assumed, civil servants of the outgoing administration would transfer their affairs to the authorized representatives of the new president. Simultaneously, consultations on the formation of the future Government, as well as discussions on programs and concepts, should be taking shape in the State Duma. With the intent to confirm the premier, after some debate.

The beauty of the current situation is that the newly selected president doesn’t even stutter about the transfer of business (which is completely understandable – he wants very much to live at least to see the inauguration). As for Medvedev’s team – here there is only gossip. And it’s ridiculous to even speak about the consultations of the future premier with the Duma “vegetables.” Let them say thank you, that he listened to them recently and only soured on Zhirik ([Zhirinovsky]).

Now Putin and Medvedev are busy with a far more interesting and important affair – they are themselves trying to figure out just what they’ve created. They’re thinking of how to divide the powers so that the “old” [leader] isn’t jealous, and at the same time the “new” one doesn’t look completely like a marionette. After all, it goes without saying that Putin has been diligently creating a system of power that is impossible to divide for eight years now. In this system of “manual operation” of the country, the president exercises [constant] authority, making dozens of managerial decisions on a daily basis. If you grant someone else the right to make them, it means that you lose authority.

Here’s the simplest question: How will the system of job assignments look for the defense and law enforcement agencies? Clearly, Medvedev will put his signature under the order. But where will the decision be made? If it’s in the new administration, then it means there will a a serious level of influence there over the siloviki [(members of the government with a background in the military and security organs)]. Is Putin ready to trade-off this influence? If not, he needs to arrange the matter in such a way that the papers come through his people, so that he can somehow track them. And this, I’ll repeat, is the simplest, most routine question of the Kremlin’s daily operations.

One can imagine what kind of confusion will occur. It is now being reported that Igor Shuvalov, one of Putin’s aides, is speaking of a proposal on the division of powers. I suspect, however, that Shuvalov’s own authority for this important matter will come a little short.

translated by theotherrussia.org