 RUSSIA IN FACTS |
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Russian presidential candidate accuses authorities of attacking business
Russian liberal presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin has accused the authorities of attacking business at all levels,
says an report in liberal broadsheet Nezavisimaya Gazeta. "They are ruining not only the business of [tycoons]
Gusinskiy-Berezovskiy-Khodorkovskiy... They are taking away whatever medium and small businesses still have left,"
Rybkin told journalists. He also said the anti-corruption drive in Russia was missing the point. "To fight
corruption, we need not committees or commissions, but economic reforms," Rybkin explained. The following is an
excerpt from a report by Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 16 January
Yesterday [15 January], presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin presented to journalists his programme for the
presidential election. It starts with a list of a hypothetical government consisting almost entirely of successful
governors. The appearance of this improvisation is connected, in the candidate's words, with his desire to see
professionals in power. [Passage omitted]
The journalists asked Rybkin whether friendship with Berezovskiy, who finances his campaign, was not an obstacle for
him. "Boris Berezovskiy," the candidate replied, "took part in the Chechen war together with me and
performed well there. I do not give up my friends."
Ivan Rybkin also commented on the Khodorkovskiy situation: "This man headed the country's most transparent
company. But once he announced his political ambitions he became inconvenient for the authorities. They are ruining not
only the business of [tycoons] Gusinskiy-Berezovskiy-Khodorkovskiy, which will be taken away, divided, and eaten away.
They are taking away whatever medium and small businesses still have." Khodorkovskiy, Ivan Rybkin is confident,
"could have existed quite safely had he not spoken about corruption".
The current president's campaign designed to fight this vice has no chances of success, the candidate believes:
"To start a business, you have to go through 57 authorities and visit a horde of bureaucrats. I remember that in
the times of [Soviet prime minister under perestroyka] Nikolay Ryzhkov and Mikhail Gorbachev it was possible to open a
business on a notification and permission basis... [ellipsis as published] Today, the Soviet Union has gone, the country
has been halved, and public offices are all occupied! To fight corruption, we need not committees or commissions, but
economic reforms."
Noting the obvious resemblance between platforms of the two right-wing candidates in the campaign, the journalists
asked whether (hypothetically) [Irina] Khakamada and Rybkin could forge a union as part of an effort to nominate a
single candidate if both were registered. "Personally, I do not rule out anything," was the answer.
The rest of the candidates, in Rybkin's opinion, were created by the Kremlin. [Rybkin's campaign manager
Kseniya] Ponomareva smiled, recalling a funny incident that took place shortly before a "television duel"
between Rybkin and [candidate Vladimir] Bryntsalov, in which the latter openly admitted that the Kremlin allowed him to
take part in the show: "Bryntsalov shouted to Rybkin: 'I am a businessman, I fund my campaign with my own
money. And whose money do you use?' I felt an urge to ask him: 'Is Putin a businessman too? Does he also fund
his campaign with his own money?'"
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