Tycoon's arrest a boon to ordinary Russians

THE arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oil tycoon, last month will dominate next Sunday’s elections, but not in the way the West might expect.

While the United States and Europe have viewed his continued detention as a giant step backwards from free-market liberalism, many Russians are pleased.

Tycoons such as Khodorkovsky, who is Russia’s richest man, with an estimated wealth of 5 billion, are despised for growing rich at a time when most of the population are confronted with poverty - the average wage is just 120 a month.

Moscow newspapers have delighted in reporting the grim conditions Khodorkovsky faces in prison, contrasting the soup and bread on which he now lives with his previous lifestyle of fast living and faster jets.

The chief beneficiary of support for the arrest is likely to be United Russia, or Unity, the party of the president, Vladimir Putin, which is leading the polls and is expected to continue to dominate parliament.

Another effect of the oil baron’s arrest has been a hammer blow against the parties he was funding. Khodorkovsky had been funding a range of opposition parties, including the Communists and centrist and liberal politicians.

These parties will now have to fight the election without the lavish advertising budgets they had envisioned.

Until now, big business - and not just Khodorkovsky’s Yukos oil company - had been financing candidates. This is likely to stop. The message coming from the Kremlin to Russia’s tycoons appears to be that they should stick to business.

The net effect of the affair is likely to be that the political landscape in Russia will remain largely unchanged from the last elections, four years ago.

Now, as then, Unity is in the lead, with the Communist Party, which soaks up much of the country’s "grey vote", in second place. Polls give Mr Putin’s party 22 per cent and the Communists 20 per cent. Trailing well behind are the centrist and liberal parties that once carried the hopes of the free-marketeers: the Liberal Democrats, expected to get 8 per cent, and the Alliance of Right Forces, are at 5 per cent.

This month, Boris Gryzlov, the interior minister, kicked off the official one-month campaign season with a speech promising further reforms, to banish red tape and stop corruption. He is on strong grounds. Voters will see Khodorkovsky’s arrest, and the investigations into his company, as proof that nobody is immune from investigation.

Four years ago, Mr Putin’s Unity Party roared into office on the back of a successful war in Chechnya. Now that war has gone savagely wrong, but other things have gone right. Pensions, taxes and restrictions on small businesses have all had a shake-up.

High oil prices and some sound fiscal management means Russia no longer needs to borrow money from the West - and has some to spare.

Although Unity is officially separate from Mr Putin, the party will expect to benefit from the Putin effect.

The other parties will be harmed by the reputation the politicians have for corruption and nepotism. This is one more reason why voters like Mr Putin and why they might reward his party.

They like his simple style, his strict manners, his plain suits and dignity. Above all, they are comfortable with his strict rule. If living conditions are not getting any better, they are at least not getting any worse. Even with the Chechen war, there is no doubt Mr Putin has a firm hand on the Russian tiller.

In fact, Unity’s biggest opponent is likely to be voter apathy.

Most Russians are disenchanted with politics in general and few believe the opposition parties will shake free of cronyism.

Support for Unity is lukewarm and for many, not enough to persuade them to head out into the snow next weekend to vote.

Mr Putin must be hoping a good result will put him on course to win the presidential elections next March.

But the run-in to this week’s vote is likely to be frenetic. The constitutional court has struck down part of the new election law, which would have prevented newspapers from giving opinions about candidates or revealing details of their private lives.

This final week could bring an explosion of colour, allegations and anger from the media.

What happens after the expected Unity victory is unclear. But it seems likely that the Kremlin, which Mr Putin has packed with former KGB officials, will continue its hard line.

Less clear is if the modest economic boom will be sustained.

Foreign firms are likely to be nervous about investing in a country where prominent industrialists can simply be whisked off to jail.