Liberals in Russia
Politics seem rather settled and authoritarian in Russia. Then a radical think tank proposes more elections and less censorship. What's a Putin to think? Will he even notice?Research Group’s Report Urges Radical Changes in Russia
A liberal-leaning policy organization that advises President Dmitri A. Medvedev on Wednesday recommended a startling agenda of long-term changes, including restoration of elections for governors, an end to censorship of the news media, Russian membership in NATO and dissolution of the Federal Security Service, successor to the Soviet-era K.G.B.
Igor Y. Yurgens, director of the Institute of Contemporary Development, said at a news conference that unless Russia modernized, it risked losing its brightest young people to the West and aggravating internal tensions to the point where Russia itself could break up…
Mr. Yurgens’s institute has regularly called for liberal reforms, and it is not considered to have particular sway over Mr. Medvedev, who serves as chairman of its board of trustees. But Wednesday’s report contained the group’s boldest proposals to date, and drew immediate rebukes from conservative lawmakers who said liberals were trying to take Russia back to the chaotic 1990s and the age of Boris N. Yeltsin…
Alexei V. Markarkin, an analyst at the Center for Political Technologies, said there were signs of a loosening in Russian public discourse, in which “those questions which were too dangerous to discuss can now be discussed.”...
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Labels: political culture, politics, Russia
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:28 AM
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