"The President is far away, but we are close"

The Kirov regional administration is persecuting young United Russia members for fighting corruption

A too literal understanding of the topic of the fight against corruption backfired on the Kirov regional branch of the Young Guard of United Russia. Pro-Kremlin youth, having heard the calls of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, decided to actively get involved in the fight against this painful problem of modern Russia and conducted a series of sociological studies. As a result, it turned out that the population of the Kirov region considers the most corrupt positions of the governor, mayor and deputies.

As the head of the Kirov branch of the Young Guard, Anton Russkikh, told a Vremya Novostey correspondent, the regional administration, having barely become familiar with the results of the study, reacted to them like a bull to a red rag. At the same time, he noted that the study was conducted for internal use, its results were not published anywhere, but reached officials thanks to a leak. The curious thing about the situation is that the governor of the Kirov region, Nikolai Shaklein, like the vast majority of regional heads, is a United Russia member.

“We learned about the reaction of the authorities after the regional legislative assembly decided to appeal to the governing bodies of the party with a proposal to expel me from the ranks of United Russia,” Russkikh said. - This issue was also considered by deputies of the City Duma. The region's leadership even called on deputies from other factions to vote for this appeal. A tax and prosecutorial investigation was launched against me, and administrative resources were used in full force. And two months ago, a criminal case was opened for abuse of official powers, although I am neither an official nor a deputy.”

Anton Russkikh notes that the study did not mention personalities, and the next two surveys were aimed at identifying why people answer questions about corruption the way they do. The very next survey showed that the population was unaware of facts of corruption on the part of the governor. But this did not save the Kirov “Young Guard” from the discontent of the regional administration. And when appealed to the name of the president, who called to fight corruption, according to the head of the Kirov Young Guard, the regional administration responded: “The president is far away, but we are close.”

At the same time, as Anton Russkikh said, the struggle of young United Russia members against local corruption was not limited to this study. “Our organization appealed to the governor about an interdepartmental commission to combat corruption. Such commissions have been created in each region. But in the Kirov region, 99% of the commission members are senior officials. That is, initially it cannot bring results, because officials must whip themselves. The governor ignored our appeal and said that the Young Guard was an extremist organization in the Kirov region, after which many of our events were banned. They don't give us a platform. They invite us to an interdepartmental commission, and then they forbid the security to let us into the building,” says Mr. Russkikh.

The leader of the Kirov “Young Guards” criticizes the regional authorities for refusing to acknowledge the existence of the problem of corruption. “The regional authorities believe that if you don’t say the word “corruption,” then there seems to be no corruption. When our president admits that we have a problem of corruption, that there are corrupt positions, this means that the next stage should be solving this problem,” the “Young Guard” believes.

“We get a conflict within the party in power, when it has absorbed almost all living things that exist in the regions. Including all pre-existing conflicts,” Georgy Chizhov, vice-president of the Center for Political Technologies, told a Vremya Novostey correspondent. - The most interesting thing here is that the Young Guard did not intend to take any opposition actions. They heard the call of President Medvedev and, as best they could, began to implement it. I don’t think they wanted to shake the position of the current governor. Moreover, the result was unpredictable. It is significant that in the current system, any criticism is perceived very painfully by officials. As a result, the actions of the “Young Guards,” which they consider correct from an ideological point of view, were actually blocked by their own political allies.”

Ksenia VERETENNIKOVA