MOSCOW — The Russian government under Vladimir Putin has amassed so much central authority that the power-grab may undermine Moscow’s commitment to democracy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday.
“In any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development,” Rice told reporters after meeting with human-rights activists.
“I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma,” said Rice, referring to the Russian parliament.
Telephone messages left with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov were not immediately returned Saturday evening.
Rice encouraged activists to build institutions of democracy. These would help combat arbitrary state power amid increasing pressure from the Kremlin, she said.
The U.S. is concerned about the centralization of power and democratic backsliding ahead of Russia’s legislative and presidential elections in December and March. Putin will step down next year as president. He has said he would lead the ticket of the main pro-Kremlin party in parliamentary elections and could take the prime minister’s job later.
Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday received a chilly reception from Putin and senior Russian officials on U.S. proposals for cooperating on a missile defense system in Eastern Europe that Russia vehemently opposes.
Rice would not speculate about Putin’s ambitions but said there were signs that whatever transition occurs could be smooth.
“To the degree that anyone can predict, it looks like it will be fairly stable,” she said. “But, I would just caution that change is change.”
Earlier, Rice said she hoped the efforts of rights activists would promote universal values of “the rights of individuals to liberty and freedom, the right to worship as you please, and the right to assembly, the right to not have to deal with the arbitrary power of the state.”
Vladimir Lukin, the government-appointed human-rights ombudsman, was quoted by Interfax as saying he told Rice that human rights should be discussed in a dialogue rather lecturing in a “doomsday” style.
The State Department’s most recent human-rights report on Russia notes continuing centralization of power in the Kremlin, a compliant legislature, political pressure on the judiciary, intolerance of ethnic minorities, corruption and selectivity in enforcement of the law, and media restrictions and self-censorship.
