President Medvedev called for sweeping reforms yesterday to overcome Russia’s communist legacy, starting with a revamp of the country’s sprawling time zones to improve the economy.
In his second annual state-of-the-nation address, the Russian leader painted a grim picture of the economic and social ills inherited from the Soviet Union, which he said could be healed only by building a modern democracy. His 100-minute address to Russia’s political elite, at the Grand Kremlin Palace, contained however few proposals for achieving his goal.
Mr Medvedev avoided direct criticism of his predecessor Vladimir Putin, now Prime Minister, who stared impassively and occasionally applauded the speech — but his criticisms amounted to an implicit rebuke of the past decade of Mr Putin’s rule, when Russia boomed on soaring oil and gas prices before it was hit by the global economic crisis. “We have to admit that in previous years we failed to do enough to solve problems inherited from the past. We have failed to dismiss the economy’s primitive structure and the humiliating raw materials dependence,” he said. “We can’t wait any longer. We need to launch modernisation and renovation of the entire industrial base. Our nation’s survival in the modern world will depend on that,” he said.
One eye-catching proposal was to reduce Russia’s 11 time zones to boost efficiency. Mr Medvedev did not offer an ideal number, but some analysts have suggested that the world’s largest country, stretching from Kaliningrad in Eastern Europe to Kamchatka on the Pacific Coast, should be covered by just four time zones.
The President said that the state’s share of the economy was too big at 40 per cent, and that giant government-run corporations set up under Mr Putin had no future. Some should be wound up and others privatised to improve what he called Russia’s shamefully low competitiveness, while corrupt officials should be jailed.Russia still lived on the social and industrial infrastructure of the Soviet era, which was rapidly becoming obsolete. “The time has come for us, the present generation of Russians, to make its voice heard, to raise Russia to a higher level of civilisation,” he said.
Advertisement
The economy had to focus on innovation in medicines, telecommunications and broadband technology, nuclear energies and space flight. Schools should be modernised and tax breaks introduced for charities.
“Instead of an archaic society, in which leaders think and decide for everybody, we shall become a society of intelligent, free and responsible people,” he said.
However, he offered only modest proposals to boost democracy — and issued a blunt warning that any relaxation of the Kremlin’s grip on power would be strictly controlled. “Any attempts to rock the situation with democratic slogans, to destabilise the state and split society will be stopped,” Mr Medvedev said.
The speech won applause for its ideas, but analysts noted that it contained little to show how they would be put into effect. Most Russians feel that Mr Putin remains in charge and that Mr Medvedev will have to make way at the next election in 2012. Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Uralsib, one of Russia’s largest banks, said that the speech was “very light on any specific point of action, just a reiteration of what we have already been hearing”.