Yaroslavl is hosting the World Political Forum. Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev has made a speech. The forum started with condolences
over the Yak-42 crash.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Polish Ex-President Aleksander
Kwasniewski, UNESCO head Irina Bokova and hundreds of other political
figures arrived for the forum.
Medvedev underlined the need to stick to modernization of the
political system and decentralization of power. He reminded his
audience that Russia will hold parliamentary polls in December.
Article 13 of the Russian Constitution states the principle of
ideological and political pluralism. The legislature has become more
sensitive to this principle, Medvedev said.
The Russian president underlined that all parties have equal
opportunities to for debates on state TV channels. The electoral
requirement for entering the parliament dropped from 7% to 5%. It will
be reduced even more in the future.
Society needs decentralization of power and public organizations
should have more authority, Medvedev said. The social structure is
becoming more complicated. Pluralism has become the decisive factor
for the development of individuals, groups and ethnicities. The
president mentioned that every tenth citizen of the EU was born
abroad.
The mass media is developing as well. About 40,000 press and
electronic media sources were registered in 2000. Their number reached
80,000 this year. There are no longer monopolists of the media market.
Millions of Internet users form the dominant information trends.
Russia has over 100,000 public unities, their number has increased by
30,000 in the last decade.
Terrorism has been weakened but not defeated.
Russia is a unique example of social, cultural and political
diversity. It has over 180 peoples. Russia is a multiconfessional
state and formed that way through history, Medvedev said.
Most citizens are Orthodox Christians, however, many regions have
Islam and Buddhism.
Medvedev pointed out that inter-ethnic tensions are escalating.
Migrations move from the south to the north. The situation is also
complicated by the huge gap between the rich and the poor. Some
statistics say that 10% of the wealthiest Russians gain 15 times more
than 10% of the poorest. A third of all the country’s income comes
from the rich and only 2% from the poor.
