Article published September 13 in La Presse
The days of the powerful mayor of Moscow at the head of the Russian capital are numbered. In trying to sow discord between President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Yuri Luzhkov has won their anger. To discredit the Kremlin has launched an unprecedented media sling.
Moscow - "Moscow suffocated in the smoke while the mayor was saving his bees?" Asks the narrator in a serious tone. This is the kind of criticism that had not wiped Yuri Loukjov for over a decade Russian TV. But last week, the "investigations" incriminating against Moscow Mayor flood the federal channels, carefully controlled by the Kremlin. Friday, NTV got the ball rolling. The chain, owned by the state gas giant Gazprom, has aired a documentary entitled "The case is in the hat", referring to the distinctive headgear of the mayor.
The report accused Luzhkov particular have dropped his countrymen during forest fires this summer. While his city was suffocated by smoke, he waited several days before to interrupt his vacation abroad.
Upon his return, the narrator notes, the mayor has allocated 105 million rubles (3.5 million) for the care of victims of fires and 256 million ... for those bees. Beekeeping is a favorite pastime of the colorful mayor.
The report "revealed" as the fortune accumulated by his wife (2.9 billion according to Forbes), queen of real estate in Moscow, was no stranger to the duties of her husband ...
Accusations of corruption and mismanagement at the site of Luzhkov are not new. What is new is that they find their way up airwaves.
In 18 years as head of the capital, Yuri Luzhkov has been able to navigate through the changes of guard in the Kremlin to maintain control of his megalopolis of 10 million.
Open Letter
But last Wednesday, he committed the unpardonable. In an open letter, the mayor criticized as thinly veiled President Medvedev's decision to stop construction of a section of highway at the request of environmentalists. He suggested that Putin's authoritarian approach, which tends to favor the continuation of work, is better to resolve the country's problems as the head of state, more inclined to compromise.
Following publication, an anonymous source in the Kremlin told the Interfax news agency that the attack "would not remain without appropriate response." Since then, the documentary-shock swarm.
Luzhkov again on Friday asserted that he had no reason to leave office before the end of his fifth term in 2011.
Legally, Dmitri Medvedev may refer the mayor as he pleases. But he must first find a successor, and no name currently appears to be unanimity in the corridors of the Kremlin. Meanwhile, the propaganda is responsible for burning down the mayor of 73 years, who dared to choose confrontation.
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