28/12/2005 6:05:43 pm
Authoritarian Russia. Russia has taken many serious steps away from both economic and political freedom in recent years. Of course the Yukos affair has been a scandal, and another one is the new law about forced registration of NGO:s - which will, in practice, force independent international organisations out of the country. Now, the chief economic aviser to President Putin, Andrei Illarionov, finally quits. He has been the architect and leading advocate of market-oriented reform, but now resigns, since he cannot work for an authoritarian government. A very bad sign indeed.

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