Russia 111117 Basic Political Developments

OSCE interim report on Russian election campaign expected Friday -media

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20111117/168769565.html
06:40 17/11/2011

MOSCOW, November 17 (RIA Novosti)

The main election monitoring arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) may publish its interim report on the election campaign in Russia on Friday, the Kommersant daily said on Thursday.

Russia's election authority, the Central Election Commission, has accused the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of applying double standards and politicizing the election process.

The newspaper quoted an unnamed ODIHR source as saying that the report, to be delivered on November 18, would focus on legislation and contain only facts without making any conclusions.

ODIHR spokesperson Jens Eschenbacher confirmed that the report would be published in the coming days, saying it was "a standard practice" and there was nothing uncommon about it.

ODIHR boycotted previous Russian presidential and parliamentary elections in 2007-2008.

The election body was officially invited to send its observers to Russia's December 4 parliamentary elections, but their number was limited to 200. ODIHR planned to send 260 monitors to Russia.

The mission's chief, Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, said the organization would make a preliminary report on whether elections in Russia comply with international standards the day after the polls, on December 5.

13:05 17/11/2011RUSSIAN PRESS REVIEW

Youth loyal to power and opposition to meet in face-off in Moscow on elections day

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c142/274385.html

MOSCOW, November 17 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia’s Central Elections Commission /CEC/ has not seen any violations in the plans of the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi /Ours/ to organise in Moscow a national convention on the day of elections to the State Duma on December 4. The opposition is sure that the basic purpose of Nashi is to suppress possible meetings of those who would not agree with calculation of votes.

First information about the large-scale event appeared several days earlier in social networks, the RBC daily reports. “We expect about 30,000 participants,” an activist from St.Petersburg Anastasiya Shipilina wrote in her blog. The forum will be supported by Rosmolodezh /youth policy authority/ and now organisers put together lists of participants. She suggests filing a motivated application for participation in the event, and to those above 18 she suggests bringing with them to Moscow their absentee voter certificates to vote here. Most active participants will be chosen by the presidential administration over the forum, and they will become responsible for a new youth project, she promises. Nashi’s federal commissar, Maria Kislitsyna, says that during the forum of civil activists the youth will patrol streets to prevent possible provocations and to support the United Russia party.

Russia’s CEC did not see any violations in the plans of Nashi to organise a national convention on the elections day, the Novye Izvestia writes. Neither did it see any violations in the fact that activists are invited to come to Moscow having their absentee voter certificates. “A youth organisation may have its congress any day,” CEC’s Secretary Nikolai Konkin said on Wednesday. “Use of an absentee voter certificate is a right of any citizen.” Formally, there is nothing to argue about. But the non-system opposition prepares its own events on that day, where participants will prove that the elections were not legitimate. The Strategy 31 supporters plan to come to Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Square. Besides, the organisation committee of the Russian March address Muscovites to come to Revolutsii Square.

The opposition take the plans of Nashi as clear agitations for the ruling party, with which the movement is associated clearly, the newspaper writes. Political scientists fear massive falsifying with absentee voter certificates, which Nashi members will bring to Moscow from other cities. And the patrol of streets they declare may cause major clashes.

Medvedev tweets about web site on presidential initiatives

http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/11/17/60525944.html
Nov 17, 2011 09:08 Moscow Time

Russia`s President Dmitry Medvedev has announced on his Twitter blog the launch of a web site called Da! (Yes!) to attract active internet users to support presidential initiative and even join some projects. 

4,000 web users have already voiced their support to Mr. Medvedev.  

(TASS)

01:31 17/11/2011Top News

Medvedev calls for further social support to disabled people

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/274009.html

GORKI, November 17 (Itar-Tass) —— President Dmitry Medvedev said it would be necessary to continue the policy of social support to disabled people that has been carried out over the last several years largely by United Russia.

“We have started changing our attitude towards disabled people, their social status and, I hope, everyday life lately, but this does not mean that we have succeeded everywhere,” Medvedev said at a meeting with people with disabilities on Wednesday, November 16.

He stressed that the federal government has been allocating more funding for support to disabled people lately. “United Russia votes for the budget, while other parties often do not vote. So, no matter how good these parties may be, they do not support these expenditures,” the president said.

According to the president, many projects for people with disabilities “are working in Moscow and other places”.

“We cannot lose the tempo and the achievements we have made over the last several years. We must continue this policy. But keeping the policy running depends on the individual decision of each person, including people with disabilities,” Medvedev said.

06:24 17/11/2011ALL NEWS

FC speaker says regions need powers, resources for effective management

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/274078.html

MOSCOW, November 17 (Itar-Tass) —— Regions need powers and resources for effective management, Federation Council Chairperson Valentina Matviyenko said.

“If we want to raise the responsibility of the regional authorities, let’s give them resources, possibilities and resources for effective management of their regions, and then we can call them to account, whereas now we hold governors responsible for everything but we have not given them enough powers,” Matviyenko said in an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta to be published on Thursday, November 17.

The Federation Council’s proposals concerning decentralisation of power were handed over on November 2 to the governmental commission headed by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak.

“I think we joined in this work quite timely, seizing the initiative,” Matviyenko said. “We collected suggestions from all regions and studied them very carefully. There was a great many of them and they were different, sometimes controversial. Our task was to sort all this out and draw up the final conclusions.”

Only the first stage has been finished. The Federation Council will continue working with the Kozak commission. After conceptual approaches have been approved and adopted, “we will raise the question of abolishing a large number of federal bodies’ representative offices in regions,” the speaker said.

In some regions, there are as many of them as 70, plus over 160 territorial ones. “I was a governor for eight years and I want to say that sometimes you can’t understand what all these structures do. Some 400,000 civil servants and representatives of federal ministries and agencies are working in regions. What for?” Matviyenko said.

“If the proposed ideology is adopted,... inter-budgetary relations will have to be changed. This is our firm condition that all powders to be delegated to certain levels of government should have permanent sources of funding,” she said.

The final document drafted by the Federation Council consists of three sections. The first contains a list of 35 powers that regions think should be handed over to the federal government. Twenty of them were delegated to regions over the last several years.

The second section contains powers that should be transferred from the federal government to regions. There are 44 of them.

The third section deals with delimitation of powers and responsibilities between regions and municipalities.

The final report on the transfer of executive powers from the federal government to regions will be submitted to the president by December 1, 2011.

Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak said that the report would be coordinated with the working group on financial and tax issues and inter-budgetary relations.

An interim report has so far been submitted to the president. In it, the working group supported the transfer of supervisory functions in the fields sanitary-epidemiological and veterinary control, cadastral registration and valuation of real estate, as well as state registration of rights to real estate to regions and local administrations.

In addition, supervisory functions in the field of civil defence and protection of the population in emergency situations have also been transferred to regions.

Kozak stressed that the transfer of powers “should be finished as quickly as possible” in order to determine the structure and composition of the government by next May, depending on which functions will be retained by the federal authorities and which will be delegated to regions.

Proposals concerning redistribution of powers between the federal and regional authorities will necessitate changes in inter-budgetary relations, Federation Council Chairman Valentina Matviyenko said earlier.

President Dmitry Medvedev instructed the Federation Council to study the question of distributing power between the federal, regional and municipal authorities.

“We will not be guided by the ‘take as much power as you want’ principle. What is important is to redistribute powers to those levels of government where they will be exercised mote effectively. And this means a transfer of some powers to the federal level and vice versa from the federal to the regional and municipal levels,” Matviyenko said.

“A hasty transfer of powers to the municipal level, including those in the field of healthcare, resulted in a situation where these powers were not exercised for lack of funding,” she recalled.

“All powers must be backed up by permanent sources of funding, and the proposals to be worked out will necessitate changes in inter-budgetary relations,” the speaker said.

“Unfortunately, inter-budgetary relations today to not motivate regions to expand their tax bases and increase budget revenues, as they often depend on the ability of a certain leader to push its course through. It must not be like this. There must be a single method that takes into account specific features of regions,” Matviyenko said.

The transfer of some of the budget powers to regions and municipalities will reduce the share of the federal budget by 0.5-1 trillion roubles, Russian presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich said earlier.

“The idea is to make the decision, based on the experience of the last three years, to transfer a part of powers to lower levels of the budget system and transfer tax revenues to the same levels as well,” the aide said.

“In this case the share of the federal budget will decrease, I think, by about 5 percentage points, which means about half a trillion roubles. These are large amounts, not just some token changes,” Dvorkovich said.

In the his message on the budget policy in 2012-2014, Medvedev said redistribution of budget powers between federal, regional and local authorities would be an important stimulus for economic growth in Russia.

“The questions of achieving sustainable rates of economic growth, economic modernisation and targeted aid to the population cannot be solved without the participation of Russian regions and municipalities,” the president said.

“Regional and local authorities should have more possibilities to influence the investment climate and solve social questions. But they need a strong financial basis for that. Proposals should be drafted by December 1, 2011 on how decentralise the powers, including in the tax and inter-budgetary ones, between the federal, regional and local levels of government,” Medvedev said.

17 November 2011, 11:19

St. Pete legislature almost unanimously votes on fines for homosexuality propaganda

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=8888

St. Petesrburg, November 17, Interfax - The legislative assembly of St. Petersburg passed in the first reading a bill introducing civil liability for the propaganda of homosexuality and pedophilia among minors, an Interfax correspondent reports.

Presenting the bill its author Vitaly Milonov attributed the need for it to the fact that "children should be protected from destructive information."

He said that "the wave of popularity of sexual perversions" is sweeping over St. Petersburg.

The bill provoked a stormy debate. Yelena Babich, Liberal Democrat, was shocked that the bill provides for moderate punishment for such actions. In her opinion, "covert propaganda [of homosexuality and pedophilia] is conducted throughout the city," she said.

To prove her point she said that during the celebration of City Day, the streets of St. Petersburg are decorated with pictures of Peter the Great and the rainbow which is a symbol of the world gay community.

"What does a penalty of 1,000 or 3,000 rubles ($33-100 - IF) mean for a pedophile, if they are supported by international circles?" she lamented. In her opinion, the fines for such offenses should be quite tangible and personal punishment in some cases can imply severe prison terms.

Deputies adopted the bill almost unanimously - 37 voted for it, one against and one abstained.

The bill introduces a penalty for the propaganda of homosexuality for private individuals at 1,000 to 3,000 rubles, for officials at 3,000 to 5,000 rubles, for legal entities at 10,000 to 50,000 rubles. The bill will supplement the city code of civil offenses.