Administrative Resources and the Russian Parliamentary Election

Investigative journalism remains a dangerous profession in Russia.

Natalia Morar' (picture above in the insert), a journalist for newtimes.ru, a website that I highly recommend for good independent news about Russia, has been refused entry to Russia (she is Moldavian) as she was returning to Russia from Israel. Apparently the order came down from the FSB, a highly irregular practice in border security and a suggestion that she has made someone in the FSB very unhappy with her reporting. She is now back in Chisinau where her parents live and has already gone to the Russian embassy there, who knew nothing about her deportation order other than they had seen on television.

This denial of entry is most likely linked to an article that she wrote about the use of a "black fund" (sometimes translated confusingly as "black till") system for newtimes.ru that detailed the use of administrative resources to control the most recent Parliamentary election (she has written other articles describing other corruption that has allegedly taken place in the Kremlin, including work on the bank Discount and work that has described the killing of the head of the Russian central bank, Andrei Kozlov). Though, it is also possible that she is being barred from entering Russia because of her participation in Kasparov's Other Russia movement or her involvement in the March of Dissenters protests.

Her most recent article is interesting. As she points out in her article, the "black fund" method for controlling election results, was born in the Yeltsin era. It involves the creation of a cash based fund which the Kremlin uses to fund parties that it supports, including opposition parties like A Just Russia, Yabloko, and others.

According to a series of interviews with high ranking Russian bankers and politicians, the system works like this. The Presidential Administration has unparalleled power over the financing of elections.Major government corporations like Gazprom and others donate money to the fund (in cash) and then these are distributed by the Kremlin administration (Surkov - Putin's chief ideologue and one of the founders of sovereign democracy).
Also, any major contributions that any other major party is planning on receiving as support is also required to be funneled through this black fund as well.
The fund itself is kept at Vneshekonobank (VEB). VEB was created in 1992 to handle Russia's inherited foreign debt liabilities from the Soviet period. Since then it has been hardly a source of transparency (it cannot be inspected by the Central Bank for irregularities) and now two of Putin's former KGB colleagues, according to Morar's report, are heading it up.

Summed up shortly, imagine if the Bush administration were responsible for controlling the funds of the Obama campaign - unlikely that they would be particularly fair in handing the money out. It also suggests the far ranging influence of the Presidential administration in the Russian political system.