Editorial: "Have You Stopped Being Devious?"
Vedemosti November 15, 2011
Translated by Johnson's Russia List (November 17, 2011)

In an interview for Itogi magazine, Sergey Sobyanin, the progressive mayor of the Russian capital, formulated a universal slogan that all representatives of the Russian regime should now adopt. Answering a question about the stylistic coincidence between the street advertising for the State Duma elections put in place by the Moscow City Electoral Commission and the advertising produced by United Russia, which is running in these elections, Sobyanin said: "I do not see anything unlawful in the coincidences that you cite.... Why be devious? Of course we are not separate from parties and politics. When we talk about United Russia we imply that on a Moscow scale the authorities -- city and party -- are essentially the same...."

The mayor did not mention the Moscow City Electoral Commission and did not formally dispute its independence envisioned by federal law. On the other hand, in his reply he de facto replaced the Moscow City Electoral Commission with the broader concept of "the city authorities." It is honest. And it would be no bad thing to extend the slogan "Why be devious?" to other spheres of the relationship between the regime and society.

For example, it is time that Rostrebnadzor (Federal Service for Oversight in the Sphere of the Protection of Consumers' Rights and People's Well-Being) stopped being devious by talking about Tajik migrants having a predisposition toward tuberculosis. And also about the harmfulness of Moldovn and Georgian wines, Latvian sprats, Belarusian dairy products, and so forth. It is unseemly for a big and strong country to pursue a policy without calling things by their proper names.

It is time that officials of every stripe stopped being devious about state acquisitions by painting a picture of impartial compliance with tender procedures when contracts are given to organizations that they themselves have created. It is time that officials and business people stopped describing the absolutely mandatory sponsorship of sports teams and pre-election events as a social responsibility on the part of the business community.

The law-enforcement agencies should stop disguising their economic interests and practices as concern for the security of citizens and the country. And the economic authorities should stop talking about the creation of conditions for business and the reduction of taxes and checks. It is time that ministries stopped being devious by describing as strategies and programs new plans that are written to obtain brownie points and whose content is transferred from old plans, whose figures change before our very eyes, and whose implementation nobody ever checks. Why be devious in talking about the development and modernization of the country and the diversification of the economy?

It is time that the courts stopped pretending that they are independent. And that parliament stopped pretending that it is a place for debate (Boris Gryzlov warned about this long time ago, incidentally). It is time that all three branches of power -- the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary -- stopped pretending that there is a separation of powers between them. It is time to stop being devious by describing "the elections" as elections.