Grassroots politics in Russia
Clifford J. Levy's report in the New York Times suggests that there are cases in which even the Kremlin has to recognize the power of grassroots politics, at least enough to have to respond to it. What is it that makes this one of those cases?Weary of Highway Bribery, Russians Take On the Police
"Kirill Formanchuk, like almost everyone who drives in Russia, was used to being pulled over by the police and cited for seemingly trumped up infractions...
"Mr. Formanchuk became a leader of a budding movement to uphold motorists’ rights in the face of police corruption, making him a not unfamiliar face when he went to a police station here two weeks ago to register his car.
"The next time he was heard from, he was in the hospital with severe injuries from a beating, and the resulting outcry in Yekaterinburg has caused an unexpected burst of civic activism across the country...
"Motorists’ groups have held demonstrations against the police... and an Internet posting in support of Mr. Formanchuk has received nearly 200,000 hits... Even the national television networks, which are under the Kremlin’s control and tend to ignore news that reflects poorly on the government, have begun to focus on what happened to Mr. Formanchuk...
"The tensions over the police in Russia have soared with the enormous growth in car ownership...
"More cars mean more opportunities for the police to solicit bribes... The corruption also emboldens people to drive recklessly because they know they can skirt penalties by slipping money to an officer. (The typical bribe is $5 to $20.)
"Police malfeasance has an especially corrosive effect on the public outlook toward government...
"The motorist movement in Yekaterinburg, an industrial center about 900 miles east of Moscow, is still relatively nascent, and only a few elected officials have aligned themselves with Mr. Formanchuk. But in an indication of the repercussions of his case, law enforcement officials called a news conference to defend their performance and to accuse his supporters of inciting the public..."
Labels: political culture, Russia
posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:45 AM
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