"Youth Apple" about the President's Address

Pavel Smolyak, editor-in-chief of the Youth Yabloko publication, gives his assessment of some points of the President's Address to the Federal Assembly. It concerns the issue of democratic values ​​in the Address, in particular the problem of free television in Russia.

According to Putin, there is no objective television in Russia that independently covers the events of the country's political life. The President also believes that all political parties should have access to the media, and social and political life should be equally covered, even if it is, presumably, the life of such a party as the NBP. These messages look very strange, if we recall the first term of Putin's rule, I mean NTV, TV-6 and TVS," writes Smolyak. "Today we are talking about the sale of the only independent (from the government) TV channel Ren-TV, which, information from a number of media, will go to government agencies. Relatively free print media have never influenced the political component of public life .

In addition, Smolyak draws attention to the fact that last year the president promised that there would be no radical changes. "But today such an institution as the election of governors has disappeared, elections in single-mandate districts have disappeared. The administrative reform has stalled. The education reform is based only on the abolition of free education. The army reform has been reduced to the abolition of deferrals for firefighters, and in the future for students."

Sources

• Pavel Smolyak. The message, as always, turned out to be rich and outwardly attractive. // Kremlin.ORG. 2005. April 29.