Yuri Luzhkov
Encyclopedia : Y : YU : YUR : Yuri Luzhkov
Yuriy Mikhailovich Luzhkov (Ю́рий Миха́йлович Лужко́в) (born September 21, 1936 in Moscow, Russia, USSR) is a Russian political figure. He has served as mayor of Moscow since 1992.
Family
His father, Mikhail Andreyevich Luzhkov, was a woodworker who moved to Moscow from a small village in Tver Oblast in the 1930s. His mother Anna Petrovna was originally from Bashkiria.
Professional career
From 1953 to 1958, Luzhkov studied at the Gubkin Moscow Petrochemical & Gas Industry Institute. From 1958 until 1964, he worked as a scientific researcher in the Moscow Scientific Research Institute of Plastics. He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1968. For the next 20 years he worked on automation initiatives in various sectors of the chemical industry (1964-1971: management automation department chief, State Chemistry Committee; 1971-1974: automated management systems department chief, Chemical Industry Ministry of the Soviet Union; 1974-1980: CEO, Experimental Design Office of Automation, Chemical Industry Ministry of the Soviet Union; 1980-1986: CEO, Scientific-Industrial Association "Petrochemautomation".)
Political career
He was first appointed as a member of the Moscow city council (Mossovet) in 1977, and in 1987 transferred to the executive branch of the Moscow city government (Mosgorispolkom). He held different positions, usually one level below the Mayor. In 1991, Gavril Popov was elected Mayor of Moscow in the first open free elections. However, according to the official version, Popov was not an experienced administrator, but rather a university professor whose popularity stemmed from his pro-democracy speeches and articles. Popov was overwhelmed by the responsibilities of office and resigned in June 1992. (There is a notion that Popov was scared of prosecution for corruption and bribery in which his office was heavily involved after the collapse of the Soviet Union which made possible redistribution of wealth. According to the same notion, Popov's "sins" are negligible compared to those of his successor.) Luzhkov, who held the position of Chairman of the Moscow city government at the time (i.e. head executive branch of the City Council), was appointed Mayor by Boris Yeltsin on June 6, 1992. Luzhkov proved more skilled at managing the city than Popov, which earned him wide popular support among Muscovites. Providing free of charge transportation to the elderly among his popular actions. Perhaps more important, he strongly encouraged business enterpreneurship. He was first elected as Mayor on June 16, 1996 (winning 95% of the vote), and re-elected on December 19, 1999 (69.9% of the votes) and again on December 7, 2003 (75% of the votes).
In 1998, as Boris Yeltsin's political troubles grew, Luzhkov formed his own national political faction, Otechestvo (Fatherland), to serve as his base for the upcoming presidential election. Otechestvo had the support of many powerful regional politicians, and its apparent supremacy was sealed when it merged with another party, Vsya Rossiya (All Russia) to form Otechestvo-Vsya Rossiya. Luzhkov and his new ally, former prime minister Yevgeniy Primakov, seemed likely to displace both Yeltsin and his inner circle in the parliamentary and presidential elections due to be held in late 1999 and mid-2000, respectively.
However, Luzhkov's fortunes turned when Boris Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin as Chairman of the Russian Government (predsedatel', or prime minister) in August 1999. While virtually an unknown when first appointed, Putin rapidly gained popular support thanks to a hard-line law and order image and the backing of powerful state-owned and state-allied media and economic interests. The hard-fought autumn 1999 Duma campaign inflicted a fatal blow against Luzhkov's larger political ambitions. So battered was Luzhkov's political capital that Otechestvo-Vsya Rossiya ended up endorsing Putin in the 2000 presidential elections, which he won easily. After this crushing defeat, Luzhkov became less active in federal politics.
He is also infamous for his stance against the ska punk band Leningrad (band), repeatedly cancelling some of their concerts.
Registration controversy
In the Soviet Union every citizen was required permission to settle in certain urban areas, such as Moscow, as the government wanted to limit the inflow into the big cities. The post-Soviet Russian constitution granted every Russian citizen freedom of movement. However, Luzhkov has restricted this right by maintaining an unconstitutional registration process. His rationale has been that Moscow's city infrastructure could not handle a rapidly growing population. Under Luzhkov's registration regime, unregistered residents have trouble getting legal employment and are regularly harassed by the police. Moscow police can stop any person without explaining the reason and ask that person to show his/her ID. Some of the most blatant limitations were removed by the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court after a long fight with Luzhkov's lawyers, making the registration process somewhat simpler. Now a person can spend 90 days in Moscow without any registration. However, these regulations contradict the Russian constitution that states:
- Article 27. 1. Everyone who is lawfully staying on the territory of the Russian Federation shall have the right to freedom of movement and to choose the place to stay and reside.
Corruption accusations
Luzhkov was frequently accused of being too close to major businessmen, including billionaires Vladimir Gusinsky and Vladimir Yevtushenkov, and for conducting allegedly suspicious privatization deals for formerly city-owned property. The Russian and foreign press have claimed that Mr. Luzhkov's wife Yelena Baturina is a billionaire, and have noted that the construction and furniture companies she owns receive a large number of lucrative municipal contracts. With the assistance of her husband, Baturina accumulated a capital of more than 1.4 billion dollars. Moscow prefects are also very well known to have wealth that by far exceeds the amount of money they could obtain legally through their salaries. Criminal corruption of Yeltsin, Luzhkov and other government officials has been a subject of the interviews of Mikhail Gorbachev, the former President of the Soviet Union. However, Luzhkov has never been charged with any corruption-related offences.
The major source of illegal income for Moscow city officials is the construction business. The deals are closed to the public. Officially, the decisions about construction contructs are made on a competitive basis — a well-known source of bribery of government officials. The company of Luzhkov's wife controls 12% of new construction contracts in Moscow. Although all of Luzhkov's associates are heavily involved in business, any obvious conflict of interests is never discussed.
Despite these accusations, Luzhkov portrays himself as a fighter against corruption. At the Congress of the party "United Russia" held in Moscow in November, 2005 he said: "Corruption is our drawback, and our task is to fight it. It is necessary to change the principles of fighting corruption; this concerns not only corruption related to large amounts of money, but also small corruption".
Personal
Luzhkov married his first wife, Marina Bashilova, in 1958, and had two sons with her, Mikhail and Aleksandr. Bashilova died from liver cancer in 1989. He married his second wife, Yelena Baturina, in 1991. They have two daughters, Alyona (born 1992) and Olga (born 1994). Luzhkov frequently appears in public at different festivals and celebrations, and is an enthusiastic promoter of the city. His hobbies include tennis and bee-keeping. His views on physical fitness are well known, with a statue of the mayor in tennis garb being erected recently in a Moscow park.
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.