Khasbulatov, in contrast, said it was “madness” to compare Nigeria with Russia. And that will only make the situation worse for ordinary Russians, the New Force Party leader said. The outflow of Russian capital is also likely to continue “and even increase” for the reasons the report listed.
Over the next year, Solovey suggested, these various factors are likely to come together. In addition, increasing immigration “pressure” is viewed by many Russians as the reason their lives are not getting better, and the influx of North Caucasians into the southern part of Russia is affecting social and political attitudes there. The factors it identifies make it extremely likely that Russia “is now at the first stage” of serious political unrest, with a new round of protests likely to emerge and on “a new basis, not political protest against dishonest elections but of social-economic dissatisfaction.” That will make the protests broader and larger. “Unfortunately,” he said, “everything” that the Western risk assessment report found “is pure truth.” Solovey said that the Coca-Cola HBC assessment “corresponds to the general assessment of the overwhelming share of Russian economists” The situation is “not simply bad it is getting worse” because of the Russian government’s policies. Polunin asked two Russian commentators for their reactions, Valery Solovey, an MGIMO professor who heads the New Force Party, and Ruslan Khasbulatov, a professor at the Russian Economic University and the former chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation. “Svobodnaya pressa” appends a table comparing Russia and Nigeria in 2007 across a large number of indicators to underscore that even then “the basic social-economic indicators of Russia and Nigeria were very close.” Apparently, the article implies and the Western analysts suggest, they have become still closer in the intervening years. But they underscore the reality that “the third presidential term of Vladimir Putin more precisely, the political protests and growth of tensions connected with it have made Russia ever more like Nigeria in the eyes of foreigners.” These conclusions are hardly original, Polunin points out. And fifth, the lack of clarity in the legal systems of the two countries makes it difficult to calculate profitability and thus determine whether an investment is wise or not Third, like Nigeria,Russia has too many different government players for any company to know whose decision will stick.įourth, both countries “historically have very high levels of corruption,” something that makes it difficult for US firms, restrained as they are by anti-corruption laws, to operate. Second, the legal systems of the two countries are poorly articulated. First, for Russia as for Nigeria, state policy is inconsistent and thus makes investing more risky.
(That this analogy is now widespread in Moscow is suggested by the simultaneous appearance of another article, this one by Petr Svoekoshtny on the portal entitled “Northern Nigeria” ( /article/7/russia/).)Īccording to Polunin, the Coca-Cola HBC report makes five basic points. In an article posted yesterday on the “Svobodnaya pressa” site and entitled “Nigeria in the Snow,” commentator Andrey Polunin said that in the view of foreign investors as expressed in a report by the Swiss Coca-Cola HBC, “Russia stands closest of all to … Nigeria” because of the nature of its political and economic system ( /society/article/64866/). Now, the analogy is being made by Russian analysts, horrifies Western business interests, and suggests that it is precisely Russia’s similarity with Nigeria on a wide range of economic and political measures including corruption and government inefficiency that is the heart of the matter and cannot be obscured by snow. In the earlier time, the analogy was made by a Western political leader, horrified Soviet citizens, and suggested that Russia’s military strength was the thing that set it apart from a much weaker country.
The three differences between these declarations tell a great deal about the path that Russia has followed over the last generation. Twenty-five years ago, German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt characterized the Soviet Union as being an “Upper Volta with missiles.” Now, Russian analysts, in response to findings of a Swiss firm, have suggested that a better analogy might be between the Russian Federation and a “Nigeria with snow.”
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, Febru– )
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