Translated material
You are taking the wrong step, comrades.
Leaving the State Duma, Mikhail Zadornov called on the government to change economic policy
Today's last meeting of the spring session of the State Duma will be, to some extent, a milestone. And not only because of the adoption of a number of, without a doubt, most important bills for the country. Today, parliamentarians will decide on the resignation of one of the oldest, most famous and active deputies, Mikhail Zadornov, who decided to go into banking business.Together with his associates in Yabloko, Mikhail Zadornov came to the State Duma back in 1993, leaving it only once, and then only for a couple of years to work as Minister of Finance and First Deputy Prime Minister. Mr. Zadornov is a permanent member of the budget committee. True, if in the Dumas of previous convocations he was both the chairman and deputy chairman of the committee, then in the current one, in which, due to the failure in the elections, there is no faction of the Yabloko party, he is an ordinary member of the committee (but by no means an ordinary member in terms of the level of economic knowledge and influence).
Apparently, considering that the prospects of being elected to the next Duma in the 2007 elections are vague, since there will be no single-mandate seats in the Duma under the new election legislation, Mr. Zadornov (elected in 1999 in a single-mandate constituency in Moscow) accepted the offer to go to work to Vneshtorgbank. More precisely, to head Vneshtorgbank Retail Services, recently registered with the tax authorities, created on the basis of Guta Bank, purchased by VTB last summer.
Mr. Zadornov will have to implement a complex and ambitious project: to create a powerful banking structure completely focused on retail business. The task has been set to create “the second largest retail bank in Russia,” Mikhail Zadornov told reporters yesterday, summing up the results of his last State Duma session. “There (at the bank. - Ed. ) there will be no lending to enterprises. These are mortgages, small business, consumer lending, credit cards. The goal is to bring banking services to everyone who needs them,” said Mikhail Zadornov. He is confident that he will bring more benefit working in the bank than in today's Duma.
Analysts note that with the departure of Mikhail Zadornov from the State Duma, its liberal wing or what is left of it will weaken even more (SPS, as is known, also failed in the elections). Vladimir Ryzhkov remains, in fact, the only widely known representative of the rare, almost disappearing species of “liberal deputy.”
However, Mikhail Zadornov does not intend to part with political activities. He remains a member of the Republican Party and will help it to the best of his ability. Although these forces will seem to be few. “All my activity will be 95% concentrated in the bank,” the almost ex-deputy noted.
Mikhail Zadornov leaves the State Duma with anxiety. He is concerned about the growing negative processes in the Russian economy. In particular, he is not satisfied with the government's inaction in the face of out-of-control inflation. In his opinion, the three-year plans of the Cabinet of Ministers are “rather pro-inflationary, which cannot but worry.” “Along with the slowdown in investment growth, along with the fact that GDP grew by only 5% in the first five months of the year, this is an obvious signal to the government and the Central Bank that economic policy needs to be seriously changed,” Mikhail Zadornov is sure. Also, in his opinion, it is necessary to continue structural reforms. However, one should not hope for continued reform of the social sphere. “The failure to prepare a law on the monetization of benefits has led to the fact that the government, having suppressed the population’s dissatisfaction with (monetization - Ed. ) additional budget payments, does not dare to take the next steps to reform the social sphere,” Mr. Zadornov concludes.
Judging by Mr. Zadornov’s words, he intends to work in the VTB structure for at least five years. This is the period for which the project for establishing the bank’s retail business is designed. And then (which never happens in life) a return to the State Duma is possible. Moreover, it is possible that as a single-mandate deputy. At the very least, Mr. Zadornov is confident that Russia “will certainly return to elections in single-mandate constituencies, because the state, or more precisely, the political leadership cannot work in a vacuum system, in a system of no feedback.” And such a connection, in his opinion, can only be ensured by deputies working in a specific district with specific voters.