| The 25 October arrest of Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovskii
has unleashed a torrent of analysis of the reasons behind his detention
and speculation about its possible connection with the 7 December State
Duma elections.
An unidentified analyst close to the Kremlin commented last week that
considering Khodorkovskii's alleged financial support for Yabloko, the
Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS), and the Communist Party and his suggestion
that Russia make a gradual transition to a parliamentary system, the authorities
had every right to act, RFE/RL's Moscow bureau reported on 25 October.
"The oligarch should say 'thank you' that he is still alive and free,"
the analyst said. "In any other country with a similar political
regime, we would have seen his funeral long ago."
Also speaking before Khodorkovskii's arrest, Igor Yurgens, executive
director of the business lobbying group the Russian Union of Industrialists
and Entrepreneurs, told "The Washington Post" on 23 October
that his group was warned by political consultants early this year that
"we have no other way but to put you on the target range, because
you are the oligarchs and this is the election season." According
to Yurgens, the Kremlin "had to find a new threat to mobilize the
masses to vote for Putin and his party in the Duma, and they found one
in the oligarchs." Last June, commentator Yuliya Latynina reported
that the pro-Kremlin United Russia party was in desperate need of a "pre-election
idea," and that the St. Petersburg faction believed the party's battle
cry should be "combating the oligarchs."
While the assault on Yukos might be linked with the upcoming
national elections, some analysts and media outlets have concluded
that the action itself could have a longer-term effect for the
Russian political system. On 27 October, "Kommersant-Daily,"
of which
self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovskii owns a controlling stake,
compared Khodorkovskii's arrest with actions once taken by
Aleksandr Korzhakov, former security chief for Russian President
Boris Yeltsin, to scare his political opponents in 1996, namely
Yeltsin's then-presidential-campaign manager Anatolii Chubais.
The upshot of that event was that Yeltsin dismissed Korzhakov
and his comrades-in-arms, FSB Director Mikhail Barsukov and First
Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets. Yeltsin made a choice in favor
of Russia's "democratic future," according to the daily, while
"today the choice before Putin is the same -- strengthen democratic
institutions or the KGBization of Russia's system of power."
However, other experts, including Yabloko Duma Deputy Sergei
Mitrokhin, suggested that the cause of democracy might be strengthened
by the arrest, because the public will no longer be able to maintain its
indifference to assaults on democratic freedoms. Mitrokhin thinks, for
example, that his party could end up attracting more votes because the
security services have overplayed their hand. "We think that the
electorate will be more inclined to favor the democratic parties because
it fears the arbitrariness of the 'siloviki,'" Mitrokhin told "Nezavisimaya
gazeta" on 27 October.
At the same time, those who advocate attacking the oligarchs
as a election gambit appear to be betting that average voters do not
identify with Khodorkovskii, who is reportedly the richest person in
the country.
See also:
YUKOS
case
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