Is there civil society in Kabardino-Balkaria? 

At present in the republic there are practically no public associations where free initiative of various groups of population for protection and realization of their interests in political, social and economic spheres would be accumulated. The most important criterion, describing situation around the civil society, is the level of its opportunity to influence formation of authorities and control above them. All public associations that tried to oppose the political regime existed so far in Kabardino-Balkaria, even in the most insignificant questions, have been crushed or closed through the obedient judicial system.

The example of the Political movement "Adyghe Khase" until recent time had remained the last organization (that tried to offer the ways of resolution national, economic, social and political problems distinct from the official authorities’ position) is very typical.

Having settled all arsenals of the methods usually used for neutralization of such organizations (threat of physical violence, payoff, blackmail), KBR authorities had made absolutely unprecedented steps not only for Kabardino-Balkaria but also for entire Russia. They formed so-called the Organizing committee on carrying out of "extraordinary congress of "Adyghe Khase" where extraneous people who had not any attitude to the bodies elected at the congress, entered. Among other things, according to operated and registered then the charter of "Adyghe Khase", at least one third of members of the Council could demand carrying out of extraordinary congress. In the new "organizing committee" there was no member of the Council, and there were only two formal members of the organization. "Organizing committee" formed by the republican authorities led the extraordinary congress of the organization, which participants were the delegates gathered from among representatives of the local authorities. Illegal extraordinary congress cancelled all the authorized and the program documents that contradicted the position of the officials and had re-registered it into a cultural society. All attempts of the Khase heads to challenge those illegal actions of authorities in the republican and Russian judicial instances had not crowned with success.

Thus, during the last years of Kokov’s presidency the rigid regime of his personal powers where there was no division of authorities and no counterbalances on behalf of civil society was issued.
One of the main conditions of functioning of civil society is existence of independent judicial branch of authority. In practice in KBR the executive authority completely supervises the judicial system. The judicial staff almost on 60 percent is formed with former employees of the law enforcement bodies and is considered one of the most corrupted.

In rhetoric of officials it was always sounded that creation of civil society is one of priorities in their activities. For demonstration of such position they had near at hand a number of organizations. Such as the Union of women of KBR, the national organizations "Alan" and "Adyghe Khase", and others. All of them in the past had a wide social base but subsequently were neutralized and since that time inherently were not public associations formed on principles of public amateur of citizens. They actually do not offer any programs; do not make any statements concerning pressing questions connected with key problems of economic and political life of the republic. Such organizations were some kind of appendix to the facade of the authoritative regime and were called to show wide public support to its all undertakings. Those organizations in essence were semi-state because nobody actually elected their heads - and appointed by the authority; they do not have joint control bodies.

In the republic there are public associations functioning by professional principle: the Union of writers, the Union of artists, the Union of journalists and other creative organizations. All of them are completely supervised by the state bodies, and their heads cannot be elected without coordination with officials. Those organizations have no influence on the political processes in the republic. They traditionally support and sound official position.

In Kabardino-Balkaria branches of some all-Russian political parties “Union of Right Forces”, “Republican Party”, "Native land" and others are registered, too. All of them exist basically only in formal way and have a very weak social base. It is connected with absence of financing and with that those parties in essence do not put forward any programs concerned social and economic and political situation in the republic.

Branch of "United Russia" party declares all the time about growth of its numbers. Actually this growth is artificial and is carried out due to power resources. One of the main stimuli of joining "United Russia", as well as the Communist party in the days of the Soviet Union, is the opportunity of appointment to various posts and promotion.

The fact that testifies to the true attitude of authorities to institutions of civil society is that the Management of justice of Russia on KBR had the precise instruction to not register any public association that in some way could become disloyal to the existing regime. So, the management of justice under various pretexts during a year and a half refused to register the Public legal expert center. And one of employees of the Managements frankly declared: "We have the Public Commission on Human Rights headed by the president of our republic Valery Kokov so registration of any other organization will be incorrect". The legal expert center was registered only after intervention of the Minister of Justice of Russia Jury Chajka whom the new package of documents for registration had been personally given.

Some scientists and politicians try to explain the reasons of weakness of civil society of the peoples of Northern Caucasus with features of their traditional society, patriarchal way of life. They consider that they ostensibly were not capable to take liberal ideas and democratic values in their cultural ground. Actually the role and influence of such features on the processes of development of civil society are strongly exaggerated. For example, Kabardians and Balkarians are no more traditional, than Japanese, Koreans or Turks. And in those countries as we know, there is the developed civil society, and change of authority occurs with observance of all the democratic procedures.

Myths about "traditional society" in the considered context sometimes appear because of ignorance but very often they are started purposefully. In our opinion, the main reason for weakness of civil society in Kabardino-Balkaria is that the Kremlin had winked on illegitimacy of the corrupted political regime riled in the republic during many years, and had given full carte blanche for all its actions in exchange to some visibility of political order there. Thus the Kremlin did not worry at all about those actions could roughly contradict the Russian laws. Any public or political forces, tried to oppose the existing authorities, offering alternative programs not coincided with the position of official authorities, easily appeared outside the Russian legal and political field.

In ideal civil society cannot exist without strict division of powers and independent press. But to that situation it is necessary to come stage-by-stage with paying attention to the local peculiarities. At the very first stage a very good stimulus for development of citizens’ amateur would be resignation of corrupted heads of law enforcement bodies and the Supreme Court of the republic. It is very important that parliament should be a truly independent branch of authority. Now it is a very bulky, incapacitated and actually illegitimate body where there are no representatives of majority of social groups and public forces of the republic. And consequently carrying out of early election to the parliament would be the second and very important stage in stimulation of the processes of creation of civil society.

The course of development of market relations, stimulation of forming high-grade opposition, openness of society and transparency of the authorities proclaimed by the new president of Kabardino-Balkaria Arsen Kanokov have already assumed obligatory revival of centers of civil society.

We believe that in the present complicated situation all really existing public forces of the republic should unite their efforts and make everything for that course would become irreversible.

Valery Hatazhukov,

the chairman of Kabardino-Balkarian legal expert center.