#6150
[Second Issue of the Day]
#11
Moscow Times
March 22, 2002
No Modernization Without Representation
By Vladimir Ryzhkov
Vladimir Ryzhkov, an independent State Duma deputy, contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.
Russia's experience with democracy has been fairly brief. All told, it has had a little more than two decades, from 1906 to 1917 and from 1989 to the present day. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that the fate of democracy and the fate of the parliament in this country have largely been one and the same. Just as it was almost a century ago, the State Duma is constantly in the thick of the political battle.
It would be hard to characterize the achievements of the pre-revolutionary Dumas as particularly great. Indeed, only one of them served out its full term, two were quickly dissolved, and the fourth was engulfed in the flames of the Revolution. Weak and poorly organized, these parliaments tended to oscillate between reckless opposition to the imperial authorities and equally unthinking acquiescence in their wishes. The stubborn reluctance of Tsar Nicholas II to share power with the parliament, together with the parliament's inability to work constructively with the tsarist authorities, was the undoing both of the autocracy and of democracy.
Compared with a century ago, the experience of the past decade has been considerably more successful. Despite all the difficulties, the parliament is much more firm on its feet and has achieved a great deal more in its relations with the executive branch.
One could even say that its legislative successes have been outstanding. In the past decade it has passed a huge body of legislation -- more than 3,000 federal laws -- regulating the main areas of public life.
Of course, some serious gaps remain, such as regulation of agricultural land sale. Moreover, the quality of many laws leaves much to be desired, and a considerable number of amendments are in order. However, it cannot be denied that a legislative base has been formed, and in this respect a contribution of historical importance has been made.
Interestingly, the passage of this new body of legislation proceeded irrespective of the political composition of the parliament. The three Dumas of the post-Soviet period have differed significantly: The first (1993-95) was a motley and unstable collection of political forces in which no one had a clear majority; the second Duma (1995-99) was dominated by the Communist Party and made an attempt to impeach President Boris Yeltsin; and the third (1999-present) has finally given the Kremlin a stable majority. However, despite changing political complexions, a reliable system emerged whereby only those laws that found consensus among the executive branch (the president and his government), the Duma majority, and the regional elite (the Federation Council) became law. Of course, deputies introduce hundreds of their own bills, but only those that have these three "keys" have a chance of becoming law.
Nevertheless, the fate of the parliamentary system is far from clear. The Duma has succeeded in consolidating its monopoly over legislative activities (in the early and mid-1990s federal laws had serious competition from presidential decrees). However, as before it remains de facto removed from the two other fundamentally important functions of the legislative branch: participation in government and parliamentary oversight of the executive branch.
As was the case a century ago, the parliament finds itself in a paradoxical position in which even a party that wins a convincing election victory does not play any role in the formation of the government. The executive branch remains a hundred times stronger than the parliament and parliamentary parties, and this has serious consequences.
First, if opposition parties have a majority in the Duma, then things tend to break down. A government that does not have political support in the Duma is forced to maneuver endlessly, losing time and energy, and cannot conduct any kind of consistent course. Second, if a "non-party" government enjoys a majority in the Duma -- as is currently the case -- this results in complete lack of oversight of the executive. It becomes possible to pass virtually any law in short order. However, the danger is that the quality of laws suffers and policy becomes bogged down in bitter and unprincipled turf battles between ministries and departments that effectively usurp the role of parties and public politicians. In addition, such a state of affairs inevitably provides fertile ground for corruption.
Policy-making by the bureaucracy with the weak and indirect involvement of the parliament turns into a messy compromise between ministries and departments, devoid of any coherence. Furthermore, the executive branch is unaccountable before society because there is no political force willing to take responsibility for the political course and holding millions of anonymous bureaucrats responsible for the results of their work is simply not possible.
There continues to be a poor separation of political and administrative functions. A minister is part-politician, determining the state's line in his particular field, and part-administrator, involved in ongoing turf wars with rival departments and agencies. Moreover, nine times out of 10 it is not political but departmental interests that get the upper hand. In the absence of clear political leadership, the bureaucracy only permits those reforms that preserve its rights and privileges.
That is how things were at the beginning of the 20th century and that is how they are now. During the democratic "revolution" of the early 1990s, the bureaucracy ceded -- with some reservations -- control of the legislative function. However, it has retained firmly in its grasp the right to govern without accountability or transparency. Society is too weakened and disorganized to insist on its participation through the parliament in the formation of the government and, through this and parliamentary oversight, to place the bureaucracy under its control. Things are further aggravated by the lack of real freedom of speech and the weakness of the judiciary.
President Vladimir Putin's arrival in the Kremlin was marked by a further shift in the balance of power in favor of the executive. With a majority in the Duma and a loyal Federation Council (after its reform), the presidential administration and government have thoroughly subordinated the federal assembly to their will. In this respect, the third Duma is similar to the third pre-revolutionary Duma, which was sarcastically referred to as the "lackey Duma." Of course, the ambitious program of Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref -- or rather what is left of it after numerous opponents from numerous departments had their say -- can easily be passed by both chambers of the parliament. The problem is that Gref was only able to save a rather small portion of his original program and has got stuck in the boggy swamp of bureaucratic inertia and sabotage. Duma parties, meanwhile, look on passively.
Putin's plan to modernize the country by means of a strengthened and disciplined bureaucracy is unrealizable. In fact, it is a contradiction in terms. In the context of a weakened parliament, marginalized opposition, limited freedom of speech and weak and manipulable courts, modernization is not possible. Attempts to do so have already come up against the problems of corruption and the sabotage of those progressive laws that have been adopted.
True modernization can only be achieved when society and the parliament, its main advocate, start to play a decisive role in policy-making and in governing the country. For this to happen, the government needs to be formed by the party or parties that win a parliamentary majority at elections.
Ministers should be political figures, and in government there should be a clear separation between political and administrative functions (this should be the essence of the so-called administrative reform and not raising officials' salaries). Parliament needs to establish strict oversight over the executive. Unfortunately, the Audit Chamber has of late, on the contrary, been losing its parliamentary roots and drifting under the wing of the presidential administration.
The optimal model for Russia could well be that of France's Fifth Republic, in which the majority in the National Assembly forms the government and the president is responsible mainly for defense, security and foreign policy issues.
In any case, without strengthening the role of the parliament it will be almost impossible to resolve many of this country's chronic problems and to establish a stable and durable democratic system.
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