Заслуга

[cle-fable.livejournal.com]

Hi guys,

I wonder if you could help me out with this passage, an article about Khodorkovsky from Rossiyskaya Gazetta.  It is at the very beginning of the article: 

10 лет, шатаясь, падая, качаясь, кое-как поднималась российская экономика. И вот только в последние 2-3 года начала более или менее ровно идти в гору. Говорят, что все дело в ценах на нефть, что заслуга Президента и Правительства невелика. Не согласен - и именно сейчас мы можем оценить, как велика была заслуга власти. ВЛАСТЬ НЕ МЕШАЛА! Власть не делала глупостей. Это высшее достижение почти для всякой власти, это фантастическое достижение, неслыханное достижение для власти русской.

Highlighted in bold is what i don't understand.  Reading that sentence alone, seeing as global oil pices are not set by the governemnt I would say that it means the governemnt did not have a very big impact on the economy - that it's influence was negligible.  So заслуга means  fault or influence.  But reading on through the rest of the paragraph that interpretation doesn't fit.  The author says the governemnt didn't interfere in contradiction of the first statement.  So does заслуга невелика mean that the governemnt did not deserve any better, that the governemnt should not be rewarded with a good economy?

The problem is that that interpretation would make the first sentence a contradiction of itself ie it was all to do with oil prices and the governemnt didn't deserve much better than it got.  The point is that oil prices are not under the control of the governemnt.

Is it just a badly constructed argument?  I'd be really grateful for your help.

Thanks.