No one in Russia really expected a close race from the presidential campaign.
The outcome of the March 2 vote could be calculated as easily as, say, Moon phases, and was as predictable as the results of puppet elections in the former Soviet Union, when candidates from the Soviet Communist Party unfailingly rallied 99-odd percent of the vote.
Dmitry Medvedev, the presidential candidate nominated by United Russia – the party in power whose resemblance to the CPSU is steadily growing – received xx% of the vote in the first round. Itmeans he was supported by an overwhelming majority of Russians, which is truly overwhelming, because it means that the minority has no chance of getting anything at all.
Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, “the eternal runner-up,” came in third this time with a mere 17,76%*, while Vladimir Zhirinovsky, nominated by his LDPR party, outran him with 9,37%*.
Of the other nominees, Democratic Party leader Andrei Bogdanov was the only one registered by the Central Election Commission (CEC). Former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov was denied registration on account of fake voter signatures presented in his support.
Medvedev’s surname comes from the Russian word ‘medved,’ meaning bear, an animal that has long been associated with the country. The bear is also the symbol of United Russia, the pro- Kremlin ruling party now officially headed by President Vladimir Putin.
The party’s clout has grown immensely after it scooped 315 parliamentary mandates (a constitutional majority) in the December election. Other parliamentary parties were far behind, CPRF with 57 seats, LDPR with 40, and A Just Russia with 38. Others have not even passed the 7% eligibility barrier.
The latter two parties vote in solidarity with the bears in parliament more often than not, with the communist group as nothing more than the Kremlin’s tame opposition.
From this standpoint, Medvedev’s victory simply consolidated the bear’s domination of all branches of power.
The formal multiparty system is in fact turning into absolute rule by United Russia and its leader; the December 17 United Russia congress was an eloquent example of that. All of the country’s top officials were there when Dmitry Medvedev was nominated to run for the presidency. In this situation, all pre-election campaigning in Russia, including the presidential race, resembled a fight between a heavyweight boxer and a flyweight boxer.
The nomination procedure seemed like a mere formality. By supporting Medvedev, the United Russia congress in fact expressed backdated confirmation of Vladimir Putin’s recommendation issued on December 10. Medvedev then said he would ask Putin to become Russia’s next prime minister, if elected president, without even waiting for the party congress and official nomination. Putin agreed, also without waiting for the party he headed to consider the proposal.
Leaders of three more parties – A Just Russia, the Agrarian Party and the Civil Union (the latter two haven’t even made it to parliament) – announced their support for Medvedev’s nomination, also without waiting for party congresses or, at the very least, the meetings of their political councils.
They had been summoned to Boris Gryzlov, lower house speaker and United Russia leader, who asked them to support the nomination. They readily did, thus agreeing to nominate no candidates from their own parties, but forgetting to officially inform the latter.
Indeed, Russian democrats still have much to learn about democracy, or at least about how to make it look like a democratic process and show respect for each other.
It is a remarkable fact in Russian history that President Vladimir Putin finally decided against running for a third term and amending the constitution, as he had been lately asked to do. It spawns a hope that this country will finally pull out of the traditional authoritarian track and onto a road toward democracy, however long and winding it may be.
When Dmitry Medvedev applied in person for registration with the Central Election Commission (CEC) and was issued a presidential candidate’s certificate, he was accompanied by his supporters, some of them well known personalities.
One of them, famous figure-skating coach Tatyana Tarasova, said Medvedev’s big advantage was his running “with a team, which was a key to success.” She was very open about “the team” being President Putin’s team, on which Medvedev had long been accorded a place of honour and which he would soon lead as Russia’s next president.
Well, it is no secret that such a team does exist, welded together by the shared concept of serving Russia. Many of its members also have similar backgrounds, such as graduating from the same college, service in the KGB or work in the St. Petersburg government under Anatoly Sobchak. It isn’t a secret, either, that the team is effectively running the country and controlling United Russia as well as other political parties made at the Kremlin’s political projects factory.
Putin’s team is bigger and more influential than what Viktor Cherkesov, the current head of the federal drug enforcement agency, described as a KGB corporation, because the “corporation” is part of it. Putin’s team has a powerful administrative resource at its disposal, which it actively taps without second thoughts even during election campaigns.
Whether this is good or bad for democracy, is not a crucial question in Russia. The majority of Russians supported Putin’s team and the national development policy it pursued, in the December, 2007 parliamentary vote. Therefore, Putin decided he would not run any risks by entrusting the former head of his executive office with the presidency.
Handing power over to someone who has been his subordinate for the past 17 years, Putin will certainly lose the presidential regalia, but not hopes to keep power. He will still be the master of the vertical government structure he created, as all of its key figures are personally indebted to him for their appointments, careers, and everything else they have.
The key political issue of 2007 was the puzzle over who would be Putin’s chosen successor. All the important members of the political community tried to solve the mystery. Now that the vote is over, there is no mystery anymore. Political analysts have abandoned their professional f fortune- telling for guesswork: who is more important now, President Medvedev, or former president Putin? In January 2008, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, who had been consideredone of the possible “successors,” spoke in the Volga Republic of Chuvashia, a rather remote province. He explained how he thought the new pattern of government would work after the March 2 elections. He said the vote would be a special one, because people would be supporting a political tandem made up of the current president and the next one.
The cards are on the table, the future personnel decisions and strategic plans laid out, he said, adding that Russia’s future would depend on people voting for that tandem. Otherwise, the might-havebeen successor warned, the “continuity and consistency of current policies, the implementation of the decisions made, and the general economic growth essential for improving living standards and national defences” would be in jeopardy.
At the time, almost all the Russian media tried to hush up Ivanov’s stunning bluntness..
The word “tandem” now seems to be the clue to understanding the current political realities in Russia. Putin is a master of political intrigue. He is capable of inventing a new pattern of government without amending the constitution or appointing himself head of the Russia- Belarus union state.
He is certainly full of surprises, but stability in Russia is guaranteed as long as faith is maintained in the Putin-Medvedev tandem and Medvedev shows loyalty to Putin without attempting to snatch power from him and lead the team. In this case, neither the new president, nor the new prime minister will have to change Russia’s government policies, as Putin himself will carry them on. February 14-th during his last press-conference Putin confirmed his intention to take the post of the Russian Prime-Minister in case Medevedev wins the presidential election.
He noted that the Constitution of Russia provides the Prime Minister with enough power for him not to contest that of the President. It became quite clear that Putin will rest the Man No. 1 in that new configuration of power. So, we shall have a tandem with Putin at the wheel.
They will pedal it together using their 17- year practice of synchronized efforts.
Putin and his chosen successor did in fact demonstrate their performance as a tandem at the president’s meeting with the upper house members in January, held to discuss the future of national projects (sets of priority measures in four major sectors of the economy), for which Medvedev was responsible.
Medvedev reported on progress and complained that national projects were financed using extra-budgetary funds, which was not “healthy” for Russia’s economy. Putin pretended to correct him as his superior, saying that the situation needed to be improved and that national social projects had to be officially financed by the government.
Right-wing media immediately accused Putin and Medvedev of “attempting to restore socialism.” But in fact, Putin was already helping Medvedev to launch his campaign in January – they undertook foreign trips and met together with voters.
. Still, no one had any doubts about who was steering the tandem.
Will this tandem continue as coherently and harmoniously as the Kaczynski twins did in Poland, one of them president, the other prime minister? Russia is extremely unpredictable when it comes to its leaders.
The old Kremlin had seen all sorts of bizarre plots. . There is an ineradicable monarchic bend to the Russian mentality, which has thwarted every attempt to implant democracy or even a constitutional monarchy in this country, let alone a diarchy.
Leaders of the Soviet communist party, CPSU, once attempted to make Nikolai Bulgarin and Nikita Khrushchev into a tandem to run the party and the country.
But less than a year later Khrushchev’s Ukrainian team ejected Bulgarin. The ultimate lineup of forces in the Kremlin will now be determined by the feuding clans which naturally took shape in the post- Soviet period, those elites in the upper echelons whose well-being directly depends on their leader.
These forces, always busy feuding with each other, won’t have any tandem. They need their own man at the helm, a Mafia capo del capo. That is why they insisted so fervently on a third term for Putin. It is hard to predict what the successor, even if still loyal to Putin, will do now that he has risen to be president, participant in the G8 meetings and commander of the military and security forces.
Will Dmitry Medvedev, an intelligent career civil servant, and by The Wall Street Journal’s definition a young loyalist, will this moderate liberal politician be able to ignore his entourage’s possible attempts to keep him as the sole leader by deposing the others? So far, no one can tell.
We can try to guess, with a moderate degree of certainty, what could be expected of President Medvedev from a series of policy speeches he made in January and February 2008. Analysts are certainly right in defining him as a liberal. The new national goal that he announced is very nicely stripped of both ideology and any specifically Russian features. It could be taken as a version of the famous American dream or the ideals of the affluent society. Medvedev interpreted them for Russians as freedom and justice, civil sufficiency and social welfare.
But isn’t it risky to propose this cosmopolitan approach in a country where nationalist passions are running high and where top politicians demand that the government choose a “specificly Russian” path of development? Isn’t Medvedev drawing fire upon himself? Some analysts claim he has no reliable contacts among the military and security chiefs, which means he will never have the tools indispensable for running the country and controlling the elites. The military and security forces en masse are not among his supporters, they say, and therefore will sabotage his orders and perhaps even openly work to bring him down.
Let me stress here that Medvedev is one of the strongest players in Russian politics today rather than a naïve “young loyalist.” The Kremlin has been tutoring him for the top office since the summer of 2005. In the past two years, Putin’s team has been gradually reoriented in line with the new model of government, the tandem.
An office for a first presidential deputy may soon be arranged in the Kremlin, next door to the president’s office, the two rooms probably connected through a shared outer office. In this case, only a narrow circle of insiders will know which of the two tells the other what to do. It is quite a widespread practice in the Kremlin, by the way.
As for the army and security chiefs, they will soon get a grip on the situation.
Admittedly, Putin might still be in for some unpleasant surprises. But the loyalty and obedience of his successor will be guaranteed by the constitutional majority in parliament, dominated by the pro-Putin United Russia party, rather than by loyal armed services chiefs. Regional governors, too, have sworn their allegiance to Putin. With this lineup, he will be able to nip in the bud any rebellion his successor might put up. A president can always be impeached under a good enough pretext.
For example, for failure to “implement the Putin Plan as he had promised.” So far, most analysts say it shouldn’t come to this, and Putin and Medvedev will coexist peacefully enough. But Boris Yeltsin, too, expected his chosen successor Vladimir Putin to follow his advice unfailingly. However, a year after Putin’s election, Yeltsin’s wise ideas were no longer wanted. On the other hand, Yeltsin was not backed by a loyal parliament.
All the above considerations suggest longterm stability and steady economic development, according to the “bears” at all levels of government.
In light of this new reality, Russians are showing less interest than ever in politics, because they are absorbed by their personal problems.
This seems only natural if one recalls a traditional negative phrase the Chinese used for their enemies, wishing them to live during times of change. In this context, Medvedev was right in proposing to them an apotheosis of consumption as a national goal.
