Translated material
Plusquamprefect
Oleg Mitvol is ready to work at his place of birth
Former deputy head of Rosprirodnadzor Oleg Mitvol, who will officially leave the staff of this department on July 6, will not be left without work. As Mr. Mitvol said yesterday, he gladly accepted the offer of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov to head the Northern Administrative District of the capital. “I was born in this district, almost 500 meters from the prefecture, and have lived all my life in the Northern District, so I know its problems well and would be happy to work in it,” Oleg Mitvol told Vremya Novostei. He added that he was ready to begin his duties as prefect on July 7. Tomorrow at the next meeting of the Moscow government, the leader of the environmental movement “Green Alternative”, who was about to enter elected politics, should be officially presented to the city cabinet of ministers as the new head of the Northern Administrative District.Let us recall that the post of prefect of this territory has been vacant since the beginning of the year, when the former prefect Yuri Khardikov was removed. The reason for his resignation was “systemic errors,” which consisted of “unsatisfactory solutions to the problems of the district’s housing and communal services.” As RIA Novosti points out, the duties of prefect are now performed by Fazil Izmailov, who, according to some media reports, is the brother of the large businessman at the center of the scandal, the head of the AST group Telman Ismailov.
The mayor's office apparently believes that a public state ecologist will be able to find a common language with the population and resolve management issues. “Oleg Mitvol is an experienced person, he has worked both in business and in the civil service, which means he knows how to think about both projects and budgets. And for the management of the prefecture, which, in fact, is an entire city with a population of about a million people, this is extremely important,” Interfax quotes Leonid Krutakov, deputy head of the press service of the mayor and government of Moscow. Mr. Mitvol himself does not comment on his new responsibilities before officially taking office. “This will be incorrect; suddenly the Moscow government will say that they don’t need Mitvol,” the former federal official is clearly disingenuous in a conversation with a Vremya Novostei correspondent. By his own admission, he received the offer from the capital’s mayor’s office “not last week,” and both parties had time to think carefully about this decision. He admits that he has already had enough of his 45-day vacation and is eager for fruitful work. Moreover, he already has experience collaborating with Yuri Luzhkov. For example, in 2007, as a representative of Rosprirodnadzor, together with the capital authorities, Mr. Mitvol conducted a large-scale campaign to clear the Moscow River of landing stages.
In addition, what makes the scandalous environmentalist attractive in the eyes of Moscow officials is his critical sentiments towards the authorities of the Moscow region. It was at the instigation of Mr. Mitvol that the federal environmental agency fought against violations of land legislation in the Odintsovo district of the Moscow region.
By the way, Mr. Mitvol’s new appointment practically coincided with the cancellation of early elections for the post of head of the Odintsovo district, where he hoped to be elected by the people. However, despite the attempts of the leader of the Green Alternative to appeal the district court’s decision to cancel the early municipal elections scheduled for July 19, the Moscow Regional Court did not change this decision. Now Mr. Mitvol, apparently, has no need to challenge him in higher authorities. As he told Vremya Novostei, the main goal of the Green Alternative is to operate at the municipal level, and with his appointment as the capital’s prefect, this goal has, in fact, been achieved. However, according to Oleg Mitvol, other representatives of the environmental movement will continue to fight for elected municipal positions in the Moscow region.
It is noteworthy that at the suggestion of Mr. Mitvol, the heads of Moscow officials themselves “rolled.” Thus, in 2007, after inspections of the operating regime of specially protected natural areas of the capital’s cultural and recreation parks, the director of the Fili park was relieved of his post, and the heads of the Sokolniki and Izmailovsky parks received a warning about the inadmissibility of violating environmental legislation. In addition, Mr. Mitvol criticized the local authorities for delaying the process of demolishing illegal buildings in the villages of Rechnik and Ogorodnik in the Western Administrative District of the city.
The Moscow opposition sees positive trends in the entry into the team of the famous environmentalist Yuri Luzhkov. As the leader of the Yabloko - United Democrats faction of the Moscow City Duma, Sergei Mitrokhin, told Vremya Novostey, “with the current cohort of city hall prefects, further criticism and conflicts with residents cannot be avoided.” The oppositionists hope that this is only the beginning of personnel rotation in the capital's government, and in the future they would like to see at least half of the managers of the city's territories replaced. Moreover, Mr. Mitvol, according to him, got the district that was not yet the most difficult in terms of violation of the rights of residents. “The Northern District does not stand out for serious conflicts,” noted Mr. Mitrokhin.
However, political scientists do not expect any other major changes in the Moscow City Hall on the eve of the Moscow City Duma elections. Although they do not rule out that the “unusual appointment” of Yuri Luzhkov, who traditionally gives preference to “strong business executives,” is connected precisely with the upcoming election campaign in the fall. As Alexey Makarkin, deputy general director of the Center for Political Technologies, told Vremya Novostey, “the mayor’s office apparently needed a socially attractive figure, a person who criticizes, speaks out and exposes, and who also works in ecology and has fame and reputation in this area.” In addition, Mr. Makarkin does not rule out that this career turn of Oleg Mitvol was facilitated by “serious hardware connections,” without which a simple truth-seeker would hardly have been able to hold out for so long in the “system of relations of the federal bureaucracy.” As for the appointee himself, according to the political scientist, this is a completely acceptable place for Mr. Mitvol today. “For such an energetic person, a prefect is a more attractive position than an official in the federal government with unclear functions and conflicts with management,” says Mr. Makarkin.