Russian Press - Behind the Headlines, June 27

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Thousands protest corruption in Moscow / VKontakte goes public / Woman to become third highest Russian politician?

Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Thousands protest corruption in Moscow
About 2,000 people took part in a demonstration organized by the People’s Freedom Party (PARNAS) in Moscow. The opposition party organized the protest after authorities refused to register it. Organizers said they are planning protests across the country and are considering ways to boycott or disrupt the upcoming parliamentary elections.

The party whose slogan is “For a Russia without Lawlessness and Corruption” was founded in mid-December 2010 by opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov, Mikhail Kasyanov and Vladimir Milov.

PARNAS leaders came to the Choose Freedom demonstration in downtown Moscow to encourage people to hold mass protests. “The authorities have deprived 15 million Russians of the right to vote,” said PARNAS co-chairman Mikhail Kasyanov. “We will not kowtow to the Kremlin like registered parties such as Yabloko, the Communist Party and the Right Cause are doing.”

The demonstration was almost disrupted by a provocation when several Young Russia pro-Kremlin youth movement activists were detained. They came dressed in prison clothes and holding a coffin lid in an implication of the alleged inmates and non-existent people registered as PARNAS members. In fact, these are the reasons the Justice Ministry refused to register the new party.
PARNAS co-chairman Boris Nemtsov said: “They say we have zero standing in the polls. If so, why are they afraid to register our party?” He added that the party charter, which also displeased the Justice Ministry, had been “copied from the United Russia charter.” Many parties have copied the United Russia charter but this did not help them get registered with the Justice Ministry.
PARNAS plans to hold its biggest protests on election day, December 4.

“It was a good demonstration, but we need a much larger event to get the authorities to take notice,” chess player and party activist Yevgenia Chasovnikova told an NG correspondent about Saturday’s event. She thinks the opposition’s main goal is Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s resignation.
The Justice Ministry refused to register the People’s Freedom Party on June 22 because its charter contradicts the law and because the party lists include non-existent persons and minors.

The opposition claims the ministry’s decision was taken at the authorities’ prompting and says this will only encourage them to take more radical political action.

“In the past, we focused on elections, but now we are only thinking about protests,” said PARNAS co-chairman Vladimir Ryzhkov.
The non-systemic opposition has been unclear about filing an action in court against the Justice Ministry’s decision. Party leaders seem divided over the issue. For example, Ryzhkov said the documents for a lawsuit would be ready within a week.
According to PARNAS, the idea that they should re-submit the necessary documents to the ministry, as expressed by President Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting with The Moscow News journalists, is derisive. It implies holding new constituent meetings in the regions which means the party will not be registered in time for this year’s election.

Moskovskiye Novosti
VKontakte goes public
Russia’s largest social networking website VKontakte is planning an initial public offering in New York in 2012.
“We are not commenting on this now and won’t comment for another month,” said VKontakte spokesman Vladislav Tsyplukhin.
Vkontakte is owned by its founders Pavel Durov and the Mail.Ru Group, which also owns Odnoklassniki.ru and a minority stake in Facebook.
Vkontakte places the number of its registered users at 100 million, while its monthly audience reached 28 million in April, according to the TNS market research company.

Analysts believe the company is going public at just the right time, considering investor interest in similar assets. The development strategy has been tested by China’s RenRen and the U.S. LinkedIn. Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site, is planning an IPO for 2012.
Tibor Bokor, an analyst at the Moscow financial corporation Otkritie, estimates VKontakte’s worth at $2 billion.
Facebook, with 700 million users, is estimated at $75 billion, and LinkedIn, with 100 million users, at about $7 billion.
Bokor believes that the Russian company may sell between 10% and 25% of its shares, as investors would prefer at least $500 million in VKontakte stock in free float, while the company is likely looking to float about 10% to test the market.

The success of the company’s IPO will also depend on how VKontakte will handle its pirated content problem. The website’s conflicts with rights holders could be a serious risk for potential investors. Therefore, its policy will influence investor decisions, Bokor said.
VKontakte has recently revised its attitude towards pirated content on its pages and is actively cooperating with copyright owners. It has allowed legitimate content owners to install their own branded license players and remove pirated copies.

Russia’s Channel One and the Videomore aggregator, a part of the CTC Media group, ivi.ru and other companies are already using this opportunity. More agreements are in the pipes, Tsyplukhin said.

The company is in fact trying to follow the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, regulating copyright relations online.
“Look how YouTube operates,” Vladimir Nabatov, the director of internet projects at Xmedia Digital, which owns the Web Sheriff service, explained. “VKontakte uses this service to identify and remove pirated content. To broadcast full-fledged films, they sign deals with copyright owners. They also automatically filter user content through a Content ID system that identifies the content owner and asks for their decision on the specific video.”
Meanwhile, the potential growth of VKontakte stock is restrained by its being a local company focused on Russian speakers, analysts say.
“There are signs that VKontakte is aimed at international expansion,” Bokor said. “But it won’t be easy to compete with Facebook, the global leader, controlling over 50% of the market in most countries.”

On the other hand, investors are also attracted to local stories, especially with a clear business model. The Russian search engine Yandex floated shares on NASDAQ last month, raising $1.3 billion for a 16% stake, while its capitalization topped $8 billion.

Vedomosti
Woman to become third highest Russian politician?
By proposing Valentina Matvienko as Federation Council speaker, President Dmitry Medvedev has saved both the United Russia party from defeat in the December elections and St. Petersburg from further municipal scandals next winter.

On Friday, Medvedev called several governors to his Gorky residence to discuss the decentralization of authority, something he discussed at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg. The regional authorities need more autonomy to address all kinds of issues, the president said.
To this end, the regional governors need St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko to lobby their interests in the Federation Council as its speaker, Bashkiria head Rustem Khamitov said. If a woman fills one of the central positions in the state hierarchy, the Russian state will be more contemporary and will have a chance for more diverse development, Medvedev backed him. Matvienko, who was not at the meeting, said she would give her answer on Monday.

A source close to the Kremlin confirmed that Medvedev wanted to take part personally in appointing a speaker to the Federation Council: Medvedev had expressed this at a news conference after the G8 Summit in Deauville on May 27.
But on May 18, after Sergei Mironov was stripped of his authority as Federation Council speaker, Oleg Morozov, State Duma vice-speaker, said the United Russia party wanted to consult with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on the subject.
Matvienko has many opponents among former St. Petersburg officials who have relocated to Moscow, and her chances were considered slim until the last minute, a Vedomosti source said.

The decision to nominate Matvienko as the third-ranking state authority was unexpected and ill-considered, a top United Russia member said. The party had not planned on rushing into a decision.

To become Federation Council speaker, Matvienko must first be elected to a legislative or a municipal assembly. The senator’s seat from St. Petersburg is currently vacant but no elections, not even municipal ones, are scheduled in the city in the near future.
In other regions (Komi and Sverdlovsk), where campaigns to elect municipal assemblies are underway and whose governors were present at the meeting with Medvedev, the senators’ seats are all occupied. 

A Kremlin source believes Matvienko will be elected to the Federation Council from one of the Central Russian regions.
Matvienko will not be a municipal deputy before late August: the nomination alone must be done 30 days before election day, says Andrei Buzin, chairman of the Inter-Regional Voters’ Association.

This move means a soft retirement for Matvienko, a source close to the Kremlin said: Mironov needed his Federation Council post as party leader, while in her case the administrative resources at her command are quite limited. She is unlikely to last long in her new job, the Kremlin official agrees.
Alexander Beglov, deputy chief of the presidential executive office who was St. Petersburg vice-governor in 2002-2003, is tapped as Matvienko’s most likely replacement.

RIA Novosti is not responsible for the content of outside sources.

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