Prokhorov said that the court has ordered Nemtsov, a former Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the opposition Solidarity movement, to retract his statement that “For many Muscovites, it has long been no secret that all levels of the Moscow authorities are penetrated with corruption.”

Kommersant has been ordered to print a redaction of another statement by Nemtsov, saying “I consider Luzhkov to be a corrupt official and a thief.”

Additionally, Nemtsov and Kommersant must pay the mayor 500 thousand rubles (approximately $17,000) in damages.

Prokhorov says that they plan to issue several appeals to annul the decision.

A second court case brought by Luzhkov’s billionaire wife and founder of the Inteko construction firm, Elena Baturina, also charges Nemtsov with libel. The case has been postponed until December 22.

The source of discontent that instigated Baturina, Luzhkov, and the Moscow government to turn to the courts was a brochure written and published by Nemtsov entitled “Luzhkov. Results.” In the brochure, Nemtsov blames Luzhkov for the deterioration of life in Moscow during his tenure as mayor, and also for unfairly awarding construction contracts to Inteko, which is said to have once controlled 20 percent of Moscow construction.

“We have irrefutable proof,” Nemtsov wrote, “that Luzhkov favored Inteko while signing permits for commercial development, making Baturina the richest woman in Russia.”

This is not the first such lawsuit filed by Luzhkov. Just weeks ago on November 12, the mayor sued controversial politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky for calling him corrupt. A Moscow court found Eduard Limonov, a leader of the Other Russia coalition and the banned National Bolshevik part, guilty of slandering Luzhkov in a 2007 case. Limonov was ordered to pay the mayor 500 thousand rubles for his statement on Radio Svoboda that “The Moscow courts are under Luzhkov’s control.”

Luzhkov, who has held the post of mayor in Moscow for 17 years and enjoys a 36% approval rating, has come under a recent wave of criticism for corruption, largely involving his wife’s business. Some politicians, however, are worried that the end of Luzhkov’s reign could result in a mayor more directly controlled by the Kremlin.

“The campaign against Luzhkov is being waged by pro-Kremlin forces. There is an order to hound him, but we won’t take part in this,” said Sergei Mitrokhin, leader of the liberal Yabloko party. “We don’t want to see him removed because then they could appoint somebody who was unelected and who would do to Moscow anything the Kremlin happens to want.”

He also said, however, that the election results did indeed “reflect citizens’ political party preferences.”

These comments follow Medvedev’s weekend meeting with leaders both from opposition parties and parties normally loyal to the Kremlin. Despite being presented with 120 counts of electoral fraud, he stated that the election results would not be annulled. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and close Putin ally, was a surprising critic of the elections. According to Zhirinovsky, the president stated that election annulments “do not, in principle, happen anywhere in the world, and that the situation has to do with the fact that we must use the judicial process – and we are using it in full force.”

Medvedev did agree that the elections had not been ideal.

Boris Gryzlov, Chairman of the Supreme Council of Putin’s United Russia party, said that by having the meeting, Medvedev had “fulfilled his constitutional role as guarantor of the Constitution.” He proposed that anyone in disagreement over the election results turn to the courts, stressing that there should not be any “political disorder.”

Medvedev requested at the beginning of the meeting that party representatives not turn the discussion into a funeral for democracy. “I intentionally dressed darkly today, thinking that, who knows, you all might be in the mood for a funeral,” said the president.

Deputies from LDPR, A Just Russia, and the Communist party walked out of an October 14 session of the State Duma in a sign of contempt at the election results of October 11. However, after a telephone call with the president the next day, LDPR and A Just Russia agreed to return to their posts; the Communist party returned for the sake of budget discussion.

Elections took place on October 11 in Moscow and 75 other regions of Russia for officials on various levels of government. They delivered sweeping wins for United Russia across the country, continuing the political monopoly it has held since its conception in 2001. Observers noted massive electoral violations, including ballot stuffing and multiple voting with the same absentee ballot.

In Moscow, the majority of opposition candidates had been banned from the ballot. Widespread electoral fraud quickly became clear and has now been statistically documented. Numerous incontrovertible examples highlight the unabashed nature of these violations – opposition party Yabloko, for one, received no votes even at the polling station where its leader, Sergei Mitrokhin, had voted.

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

According to the electoral body, only Dmitri Medvedev, the chosen successor of President Vladimir Putin, was accurate in his filings. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, allegedly withheld 12 million 638 thousand rubles (€349,414 or $516, 083) worth of investments, and a 25 thousand ruble salary from the Moscow State Open University. According to tax records, the candidate also owns a 574 square meter plot of land in the Saratov oblast.

Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov allegedly left of the value of presents received from the “Patrons of Art of Century” International Welfare Fund. The total value is estimated at 17,084 rubles (€472 or $697).

Andrei Bogdanov, of the Democratic Party failed to declare the Moscow apartment of his wife, Irina. The CEC notes that the couple has joint ownership of the 64.3 square meter flat.

The fourth and final candidate, Dmitri Medvedev, apparently filed everything correctly. Political experts had earlier scoffed at his paperwork, which states that the First Deputy Prime Minister earns just $71,000 per year. The candidate holds a second job as chairman of Gazprom, Russia’s natural gas monopoly, from which no income was declared. The company earned $13 billion in profits for 2006. According to the records, Medvedev also doesn’t own a car, and shares his wife’s 9-year-old Volkswagen Golf.

The Commission reiterated that it will not revoke the registrations of any of the candidates. However, the information will be published in the agency’s informational posters, and may be publicly embarrassing.

One candidate, Zyuganov, has questioned the allegations. “I am astonished at such a remark, because I didn’t receive any presents from the “Patrons of Art of Century” International Welfare Fund,” he told Interfax. “This fund bestowed me with its award for helping orphanages, and I was given a folder and booklet about the fund’s activities. That’s all that I can say.”