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Governor S. Furgal, 50, was arrested Thursday and sentenced to two months in custody on Friday for crimes allegedly committed 15 years ago.
The governor is suspected of ordering two murders immediately after 2000, and said there was another assassination attempt on his order. At the time, S. Furgalas, who was in the business of selling wood and metal, denies such allegations.
Scanpix / AP Photo / Sergei Furgal
According to Marius Laurinavičius, chief analyst at the Vilnius Institute for Political Analysis (VPAI), S. Furgalas was arrested after a conflict within the regime, and such conflicts are not uncommon.
S. Furgalas, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), was elected governor in the 2018 elections by a large majority. His victory hit the ruling United Russia party.
“They told the truck that he was not a candidate for the Kremlin and that he should not be elected.” At first, he refused to withdraw from the fight and unexpectedly won the governor’s election. Then the pressure of the environment began and Van decided that he could resist. So in the end, they found or created the case. ” 15 minutes said the analyst.
According to M. Laurinavičius, S. Furgal was probably not counted by President Vladimir Putin himself, but by administration employees or envoys from the Kremlin.
“And he decided that he was secure enough and supported by some factions that he couldn’t listen to it and hope to come to some kind of agreement later. Failure. Groups that wanted the governor to be the next candidate view this assessment as a violation of the rules of the game.
Photo from TASS / Protest in Khabarovsk
The van continued to receive signals that it had to follow those rules of the criminal regime. After a couple of years of non-compliance, everything ended with what always ends, “said the analyst.
Investigators said four people involved in the case were arrested in November.
“People understand that it could have happened: it was a wild decade, organized crime went into business, business went hand in hand with organized crime.” “It was impossible to be clean,” Ildus Jarulin, a professor at the National Pacific University in Khabarovsk, told the Financial Times.
“On the other hand, someone decided it was time to get revenge on Furgal for winning the 2018 election. Revenge is food served cold,” he added.
The atmosphere of protest is building up
About 600 thousand. The protests took place in the populated city of Khabarovsk for two days over the weekend. Up to 35,000 people are estimated to have taken to the streets on Saturday. persons.
City officials tried to avoid demonstrations: They surrounded the main square, believing that it was necessary to disinfect it. But police officers calmly watched protesters gather peacefully in the city center, writes The New York Times.
Local media write that this is the largest expression of dissatisfaction with government in the region’s history. Protesters demanded the release of S. Furgal, there were calls for V. Putin to resign, the slogan “Wait for Moscow”.
Why did S. Furgal’s arrest provoke such a reaction?
According to M. Laurinavičius, first of all, there is a tendency to accumulate protest moods in Russia, “although the mood is far from reaching the critical limit.”
“Second, Furgal’s election as governor was unexpected for both Moscow and the people of the region. They supported this in the form of their limited independence. Protesters say Moscow is bad, but not Putin. It is an expression of your local independence.
Third, the Van is truly popular, although that popularity has been achieved in a variety of populist ways. The combination of these three factors led to an unprecedented wave of protests. At least in recent years, there has been nothing like it, we could only remember the year 2011 “. 15 minutes confident analyst
Reuters / Photo by Scanpix / Protest in Khabarovsk
After becoming governor, S. Furgal cut the salaries of government officials and reduced the province’s debt during his government. The Financial Times notes that he put $ 1 million up for sale. a dollar-worthy yacht purchased by the previous governor.
M. Laurinavičius points out that S. Furgalas has never been an opponent, there is no reason to associate him with the slightest opposition.
“He is a member of Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s LDPR party, and the party is absolutely part of the regime.
This is a completely internal regime conflict. This is not very unusual, there are many of them at different levels when different groups nominate their candidates. ” 15 minutes said the analyst.
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