Radio Free Europe – Radio Liberty’s excellent Russia blog “The Power Vertical”:http://www.rferl.org/archive/The_Power_Vertical/latest/884/884.html reports on some interesting going ons in Russia recently “regarding the police”:http://www.rferl.org/content/Cops_Gone_Wild/1892620.html. In particular, here’s one you don’t see very often: the Interior Minister of a country suggesting the people should literally hit back at the police. As reported “in the Washington Post”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/26/AR2009112602004.html, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev stated:
bq. May a citizen hit back at a policeman who has attacked him? Yes he may; if he is not a criminal, if he is walking along quietly and breaking no rules.
Moreover, the Power Vertical quotes a Russian MP, Andrei Makarov, as suggesting:
bq. You can neither modernize nor reform the Interior Ministry. You can only abolish it. The whole police force needs to be decommissioned and cleansed with help from civil society and human rights groups.’
While such a comment might not be unexpected from an opposition deputy (to the extent that any even exist in Russia these days), what is particularly interesting is that Makarov is actually a fairly prominent member of Russia’s ruling party, “United Russia”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Russia.
What could be behind this? As with everything in Russia these days, the speculation naturally turns to relations between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister (and ex-President) Vladimir Putin, a subject to which I will return in more detail one of these days. For now, though, here is the Power Vertical’s take on how these new developments could be related to the ongoing evolution of the Medvedev-Putin relationship:
bq. The latest wave of police scandals come at a time of intense clan warfare in the Kremlin, as security-service veterans or “siloviki” surrounding Prime Minister Vladimir Putin battle for influence with technocrats close to President Dmitry Medvedev over Russia’s future political and economic direction.
bq. Nurgaliyev is closely associated with the siloviki and there has been persistent speculation in the Russian media and on the Internet that his job could be in jeopardy.
bq. Political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky told “The Moscow Times” that Makarov’s proposal to disband the Interior Ministry could be interpreted as an attempt by people close to Medvedev to weaken the siloviki.
For more, see this “recent article in The Moscow Times”:http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/debate-over-police-reform-heats-up/390487.html.