Novye izvestia surmises that the authorities will once again use the Khodorkovsky affair in their election strategy.

Igor Sonin, Novye izvestia daily, 12.12.2007

The struggle against Russia’s over-mighty magnates was a leitmotiv of the previous elections to the Duma in 2003. The criminal charges and other difficulties put in the way of Mikhail Khodorkovsky began, if readers now recall, with the publication of a report by Iosif Diksin and Stanislav Belkovsky. The two political scientists, members of the Council for National Strategy, spoke of a possible seizure of power by the oligarchs. And at the head of the list of Russian magnates who nursed such political ambitions they placed Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Searches and the confiscation of documents, computer hard drives etc., began in Khodorkovsky’s companies soon after the report was published. His closest business partner Platon Lebedev was arrested. Subsequently Khodorkovsky himself was detained by a special forces’ unit.

The “dekulakisation” of the richest man in Russia was used by United Russia as a part of its election campaigning [dekulakisation refers back to the treatment of wealthy peasants in the early 1930s during the forced collectivisation of agriculture, ed.]. Exploiting the deeply-rooted popular Russian dislike of the wealthy proved a winning card. By declaring a holy war against the oligarchs in the name of the State, United Russia triumphed in the 2003 elections.

During the recent Duma elections the anti-oligarch theme was not deployed. Instead the poll was declared to be a vote of confidence in the president, with all that this entailed. The idea of blocking the expansion of the country’s tycoons, however, has still not fully disappeared from the terms of political discourse. Now there is talk of a decision, taken at the highest level, to ensure that a new twist in the struggle with the oligarchs forms the background to the coming presidential elections.

For the authorities are uncertain whether Putin’s successor will manage to become sufficiently popular before March. In that context they decided to bring all available means of promoting the candidate into play. The struggle with the oligarchs would just fit the bill. Yet having resolved to dust off their four-year-old tactics, the authorities discovered that they now have no target left other than the long-suffering Khodorkovsky. Therefore, it seems, the new charges against the former head of Yukos were chosen as a means of updating, for 2008, the war with the oligarchs.

Such a scenario will help to resolve a secondary but still important problem. Recently, Amnesty International published a letter, sharply criticising the Russian authorities for the numerous violations they had committed in their treatment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev. As a particularly outrageous example Amnesty chose the unlawful detention of the two men in Chita and the possibility that the new trial would be held in that Siberian city.

Although the Russian authorities, traditionally, do not pay any attention to such declarations by human rights activists, even such an authoritative body as Amnesty International, they will not be able, probably, just to brush the criticism aside: the viewpoint of human rights organisations is shared by too many Western politicians. The West is genuinely alarmed by the current trend in Russian development and does not want, any longer, to tolerate in silence such outrageous violations of the law.

Faced by this situation, the Russian authorities determined on an unusual tactic. According to some sources, they are ready to give the appearance of meeting Western politicians and public opinion half-way and not to allow further illegalities. Khodorkovsky will go on trial, not in Chita, but in Moscow. However, the transfer of the disgraced businessman that is now being planned will serve political rather than legal ends. It would not be easy, after all, to turn the trial of the oligarch into a centre-piece of the successor’s campaign if the hearings were to take place 6,000 kilometres from Moscow. Information takes too long to travel from Chita. It would be too difficult to edit and transmit the proceedings for Channel One and RTR, the two main TV channels — or to organise a “flash mob” by the Nashi youth movement outside the courtroom.

Whether these rumours are true, and the new trial of Khodorkovsky is to play a central role in the coming presidential elections, we shall find out in the near future.