The Ultimate Choice

There has been an amazing duel going on for the last several months. The opponents exchange fierce blows and no one surrenders. Meanwhile, the public is watching and cheering. Yet the dueling code is not being followed properly: one duelist is sitting in Kremlin; the other is in prison. But both believe things may change.

The nine-year prison sentence handed down this summer to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, ex-head of YUKOS, was by no means the end of the matter. On Monday, August 1, the newspaper Vedomosti published a letter from “Detention Facility No. 99/1,” in which Khodorkovsky criticized Putin and predicted an inevitable “left turn” (that was the title of the article). The prisoner, among other things, called on Putin to step down at the end of his term in 2008. Yet the letter was clearly not addressed to the president, but to the electorate. And the Kremlin got the message loud and clear.

The answer came promptly: Khodorkovsky was transferred to a crowded cell (inhabited by 11 men) and denied access to news (television and newspapers), and to a refrigerator. Federal Prison Service Chief Yury Kalinin explained that Khodorkovsky was moved because of renovations at the facility.

On August 11, Khodorkovsky announced that he was considering running for the State Duma seat in Moscow’s Universitetsky single-mandate district in December. A convicted prisoner cannot run for a Duma seat, but, in accordance with the Constitution, a prisoner’s sentence does not come into force until all his appeals are exhausted. So there was no legal obstacle barring him from running for office. If elected, Khodorkovsky would technically have received immunity from further prosecution (later, he said he would have refused the immunity in any case).

This time, Khodorkovsky’s friend and business associate (who received a nine-year sentence along with Khodorkovsky), the seriously ill Platon Lebedev, was thrown into solitary confinement “for refusing to take daily walks and for rude behavior towards prison staff.” Journalist Yulia Latynina commented: “In general, the thought is a reasonable one. If the guy who is tied up and whom you just kicked still won’t lick your boots, there is no need to kick him again. All you need to do is threaten his buddy with death.”

Khodorkovsky responded by going on a hunger strike, which lasted seven days (it was a “dry” hunger strike – he took neither food nor water), until Lebedev was transferred back to his cell. After that, on August 31, Khodorkovsky gave his official consent to be entered in the race for the Duma seat.

Now, the interesting twist here is that Vladimir Putin is a registered voter in Moscow’s Universitetsky single-mandate district. So, in theory, the president could have expressed his attitude towards Khodorkovsky in December, through the ballot box. Sadly, it never got that far.

Because at this point, the duel turned into a race. It became a question of who would get to the finish line first: would Khodorkovsky register as a candidate and stand for election, or would his appeals be exhausted and his sentence begin?

The Moscow City Court hearing was appointed with amazing efficiency (especially when compared to all the previous court procedures in Khodorkovsky’s case). But on the day of the hearing, the only lawyer who had been authorized to defend Khodorkovsky, Genrikh Padva, was in hospital. The court tried to persuade the defendant to take a different lawyer, but Khodorkovsky refused.

The hearing was postponed and Khodorkovsky won enough time to mail the necessary papers to the Central Election Commission. But, for some strange reason, it took 10 days for the papers to travel across the city. (Alexander Veshnyakov, Chairman of the Central Election Commission, later apologized for the poor performance of the Russian postal service.)

After two more delays and a lot of arguments, the court speedily rejected Khodorkovsky’s appeal, reduced his nine-year sentence to eight and thus brought an end to his Duma campaign.

And yet, the battle was not yet over. After the hearing, one of Khodorkovsky’s lawyers, Robert Amsterdam, was expelled from Russia by mysterious persons and three other lawyers (who refused to represent Khodorkovsky against his will and without sufficient information) were nearly disbarred by the Prosecutor’s Office.

Of course, there will be more appeals and more repressions. The duel has not ended. Khodorkovsky for his part said that he expects to be free within three years, at which point he will run for a Duma seat.

As for the President, a ballot is clearly not his weapon of choice.