Sweeping police reform may help president gain firmer foothold.

MOSCOW, February 20 (By Itar-Tass World Service writer Lyudmila
Alexandrova) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has launched a wholesale
reform of the Interior Ministry with an unprecedented move to sweep
deadwood and cut the ministry's central staff by half. The Interior
Ministry is to lose a number of functions and powers, and police personnel
will now be faced with harsher punishment for violating the law.
Experts say the reform may give the head of state a firmer foothold.
The reorganization was launched against a background of the
months-long media campaign to expose crimes by corrupt police officers. It
is for a whole year now that the Interior Ministry has been rocked by a
spate high-profile rows. One police officer may all of a sudden start an
indiscriminate shootout in a supermarket in the middle of the night to
leave multiple casualties. A short while later another places a video
address in the world web to address the prime minister personally with a
call for stopping police outrage and restoring order to the law
enforcement. And then a third beats up innocent detainees to death. At the
end of December 2009 the president signed his first decree to reform the
police force, ordering a 20-percent reduction. It was stated that "the way
the policing organized fails to meet modern requirements."
At last Thursday's meeting of the Interior Ministry's collegium the
president recalled that last year police committed a number of
high-profile crimes that triggered strong public debate in society. He
declared he had signed decrees to change the structure of the Interior
Ministry, to make personnel reshuffles and to introduce amendments to the
Criminal Code tightening the responsibility of police personnel.
Medvedev declared a decision to narrow the Interior Ministry's
functions. It will no longer be responsible for expelling illegal foreign
migrants and citizenshipless persons, inspecting the technical condition
of motor vehicles or running sobering up centers.
The decree declares creation of special housing stock for solving the
housing problems of police. The government was instructed to reserve
budget funds for this purpose.
"This package of measures is to relieve the Interior Ministry of
redundant functions and to increase considerably the salaries of its
employees, which is very important," Medvedev explained.
A decree has been signed to reduce the strength of the ministry's
central staff from 19,970 to 10,000.
Unprecedented dismissals were declared. Eight senior officers in
charge of the police forces in Russia's constituent territories lost their
posts. A total of seventeen police generals were fired.
Experts say the most important replacements were those of two deputy
interior ministers - of State Secretary Nikolai Ovchinnikov and of the
former chief of the Interior Ministry's department for the Southern
Federal District, Arkady Yedelev.
The successor of 60-year-old Ovchinnikov is Major-General Sergei
Bulavin, the chief of the law enforcement agencies' legal support
department at the presidential staff.
And deputy chief of the presidential department for the observance of
constitutional rights Sergei Gerasimov succeeds Yedelev as deputy interior
minister.
Rashid Nurgaliyev has retained his post for the time being. Moreover,
the president instructed him to present within a month's deadline "a
detailed plan for improving the ministry's activity, including a system of
anti-corruption measures and new rules of selecting candidates for
positions in the Interior Ministry, in keeping with their moral and
psychological qualities."
A senior official close to the Security Council is quoted by the daily
Vedomosti as saying that Nurgaliyev has retained his post only for a
while. The struggle between different clans pressing for and against his
resignation is continuing, just as the struggle over his likely successors.
The minister's future will depend on how he copes with the
presidential instruction to draft proposals for forming the Interior
Ministry, a member of the presidential staff said.
On the same day the State Duma received presidential amendments to the
Criminal Code that will make the very fact of being an Interior Ministry
employee an aggravating circumstance for the one found guilty of a
criminal offence. Also, they establish criminal punishment for those
police who may defy legally issued orders by their superiors, the way it
is in the Armed Forces.
"The Interior Ministry has not experienced personnel reshuffles that
strong since the Soviet era," says the daily Vremya Novostei. "Also, on no
occasion in the past the Interior Ministry's 'inner sanctum' - the central
staff - was slashed by half."
"The country has never known a reform of the law enforcement ministry
as drastic as this one. In the blink of an eye gone are many Interior
Ministry seniors - more than had to say good-bye to their posts during the
entire presidency of Vladimir Putin," echoes Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
"Medvedev has sounded an important message to both Russian society and
Russian elites. The reform of the Interior Ministry is a purely political
affair," the daily says. "The head of state has said again - Russia's
"siloviki" (the military, the police, the secret services and the likes)
are his exclusive domain. One should also take note of this - in this way
Medvedev demonstrates that he does not share the point of view of his
partner in the tandem - Vladimir Putin has said more than once that one
should be very cautious in replacing senior officials."
Experts emphasize the seriousness of the president's intentions
regarding the reform of the Interior Ministry and speculate the positions
of the head of state are getting stronger.
Alexei Malashenko, a member of the science council at the Moscow
center of the Carnegie Endowment, sees the president's efforts to reform
the Interior Ministry as evidence of his determination to prove "that he
can and really wants to make independent decisions."
"This is a territory where he can show that he is president, and not
just a member of the (ruling) tandem."
"The things the Interior Ministry has been doing so far ruin society's
confidence in the authorities. If Medvedev succeeds with his reform, this
will prove his real strength," the political scientist said.

-0-str