The Prime Minister does not see a reactionary trend

Dmitry Medvedev still keeps in his sights not only the economy and social sphere within his competence. He is so immersed in political and legal issues that he is ready to publicly answer any questions. This was the impression the prime minister left about himself after a live broadcast with journalists from five TV channels. Some of his answers were calculated on the incompetence of his interlocutors, experts note.

Dmitry Medvedev's conversation partners in the Rossiya 1 studio were the same as in April - Channel One (Irada Zeynalova), Rossiya 1 (Sergey Brilev), NTV (Alexey Pivovarov), REN TV (Marianna Maksimovskaya ) and the Dozhd TV channel (Mikhail Zygar). In an hour and a half of communication, the prime minister managed to speak about pension reform and priority budget expenditures; about corruption scandals and fines for drunk drivers; about the political landscape and his possible presidency; about slander and even about the approaching “end of the world.” He does not attach any importance to rumors about him, since only the approaching New Year can be significant. “Dmitry Medvedev dwelt in detail on precisely those topics that concern people most—what will happen to the pension system, to the salaries of public sector workers, and how order will be restored on the country’s roads!” — Secretary of the General Council of United Russia Sergei Neverov admired the answers of the chairman of his party yesterday. Mr. Neverov also liked the way Dmitry Medvedev “highly appreciated the party’s legislative work to liberalize the political system: more and more parties are taking part in elections.” Mr. Medvedev himself admired the gubernatorial elections. They, in his opinion, although they were “imperfect,” but the country received “a system in which people, for the first time in eight years, could decide who would govern their region, and the candidate was nominated not by one party, but by nine.” The Prime Minister believes that ultimately “several dozen parties” will be registered in Russia (more than 200 applications have already been submitted to the Ministry of Justice, 44 parties have been registered). Speaking about the prospects for the party system, he rejected the idea that Russia needs to create a two-party system like the United States. “We have a different society and a different set of political habits; we are much closer to European political traditions, when there are five to seven parties that have a direct influence on what is happening in the country.”

Dmitry Medvedev: “There will be no end of the world, there will be a New Year”

“No one can know in advance how many influential parties Russia will need,” says Pavel Kudyukin, associate professor at the Higher School of Economics. According to him, only the most general patterns are known in the theory of party building. For example, “elections using a proportional system lead to the formation of a multi-party parliament, while majoritarian elections can lead to a two-party system.”

But in the case of Russia, Mr. Kudyukin believes, changes in election legislation will not yield any results until parties become the institution through which only one can come to power. The current government “was formed before the emergence of parties and itself forms the parties it needs and the election rules it needs.” “It will be possible to think about how much of a party system Russia needs only after parties begin to form a government,” the expert is sure. Until then, “the authorities will use both parties and electoral legislation as an element of political technology,” Yuri Korguniuk, an expert at the INDEM (Informatics for Democracy) Foundation, told Kommersant.

“In general, Dmitry Medvedev has become much more confident and articulates his thoughts much more firmly.”

Judging by the television broadcast, Dmitry Medvedev foresaw questions about tightening standards. And as soon as the first of them was heard, he immediately took the initiative into his own hands, listing all the laws that could be discussed (amendments to the legislation on rallies, on NGOs; toughening criminal penalties for disclosing state secrets, for libel, for distributing child pornography on the Internet). In particular, the prime minister finds it completely justified to tighten penalties for attacks on police officers during mass protests. “You cannot beat police officers - this is a crime in any country, including ours, and it will never go unpunished,” he said. “If any person who went to a rally considers it possible to hit a policeman, he must understand: there will be responsibility for this,” added Dmitry Medvedev. However, the prime minister did not specify that Russian legislators decided to punish not only fighters from among the protesters, but also the organizers of the rally for clashes with police. According to the OSCE recommendations, in the development of which Russia was a full participant, “organizers of assemblies should not be held accountable for the actions of individual participants in the assembly.”

Having assessed each of the laws, the prime minister said that he did not see any “reactionary trend.” “So far, according to the relevant rules, no one has been brought to justice or imprisoned,” he said, suggesting that everyone wait for the law enforcement practice of the rules before judging their reactionary nature.

"Conversation with Dmitry Medvedev." Behind the scenes

Lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant told Kommersant that “any management decision, especially in the field of criminal law, “involves forecasting, assessing risks and developing preventive measures to reduce risks.” Mr. Klyuvgant regarded the proposal to wait for the law enforcement practice of new repressive norms as “an unprofessional statement , which the lawyer allowed based on the insufficient competence of his interlocutors." But the head of the Duma Committee on Constitutional Legislation, United Russia member Vladimir Pligin is confident that Dmitry Medvedev assessed the adopted laws in full accordance with "one of the areas of legal practice - case law", by which to judge the law is possible only based on the results of its application.

Mr. Medvedev did not understand why representatives of law enforcement agencies came to conduct a search at seven in the morning to the author of the documentary film “The Deadline,” Pavel Kostomarov. “In my opinion, the investigation has sufficient funds to simply request certain materials in the usual procedural manner,” the prime minister said.

Dmitry Medvedev left the question of his own political prospects open. “I’m not a very old politician yet, I have some resource in time, why should I close any opportunities for myself?” — he answered a question about his intention to run for president in 2018. But the future decision, he said, will be connected “firstly, with personal desires at a particular moment,” and secondly, “with people’s ideas: do they want this?”

Victor Khamraev

Dmitry Medvedev: everything is fine