Anti-Pandemic Council on Its Way to Becoming Collective Ruler of Russia, El Murid Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 23 – The coordination council for combatting the coronavirus is an ad hoc organization must like those created in response to any serious problem, Anatoly Nemiyan who blogs under the screen name El Murid. But this council is assuming powers far beyond those of such groups created in the past and assuming real power in the country. 

            Indeed, he suggests, it is assuming many of the characteristics of the State Committee that attempted a coup in August 1991 and could either take power in its own name or reduce Vladimir Putin to a figurehead with real power in the country residing not with him but with its collective membership (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5EA137CF0DD8A).

            The coordination council has been able to do this, El Murid says, because “the current epidemic is a completely real state coup” in which the constitution and laws have been pushed aside in the name of fighting the coronavirus and in which, because that is the case, the council has been able to take steps far beyond what its predecessors ever did.

            It has imposed total control on the population, banned movement around the country, and assumed power over administrative functions. “Translated into Russian,” the blogger says, “these people have already usurped power while the president is incapacitated.” In short, “before us is a completely and really existing GKChP,” as the August 1991 coup plotters were known.

            “And even if the president is stsill in place, what is occurring is beginning to raise questions,” El Murid says. The coordination council now is acting beyond any legal or constitutional arrangements, and “in essence, after a certain time, this very coordination council won’t need a president or a government.” It will have power and won’t want to give it back.

            “It is completely possible,” he continues, “that before us is a counter-coup which the nomenklatura is carrying out with us in response to the attempt at a coup which Putin tried to stage in January.”  And if so, this means that real power has passed from him to the collective coordination council even if he remains formally in place.