COMMENTARY
by Gordon M. Hahn
There is still much speculation and uncertainty about whether Russian President Dmitrii Medvedev and Prime Minister and former president Vladimir Putin are now competing for the right to be the Kremlin’s presidential nominee for the upcoming 2012 elections set for March, less than a year from now. Differences over emphasis on reform (Medvedev) versus stability (Putin), the Khodorkovskii trial, and Libya are just a few of the pieces of evidence observers put forward as evidence of a split in the tandem.
Perhaps, the ‘tussle under the carpet’ between their teams and even between Medvedev and Putin themselves should be looked at through the prism of the respective teams’ recent dancing with political parties in the present runup to the December Duma elections. Any tussle within the tandem should now be centered on influencing the outcome of the Duma vote. Under such a scenario Medvedev and/or his team would be seeking to lower the ruling United Russia (UR) party’s vote so, if necessary, he could pose the threat or actually remove Putin as PM. This would perhaps protect Medvedev from any attempt by Putin to return to the presidency by forcing Medvedev not to run. Putin and/or his team would be trying to maintain UR’s majority to deprive Medvedev of this option and maintain his own position of parity or even advantage over the president, despite the latter’s superior powers on paper. In recent days, maneuvering seems to have emerged in accordance with this framework.
First it was reported by a prominent UR member that Presidential Administration Deputy head Vladislav Surkov is moving to position the Fair Russia (FR) party to back Medvedev (Tom Parfitt, “Medvedev wants to stay on as Russian president, says leading MP,” The Guardian, 2 May 2011). Then the UR’s majority in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly announced that it was preparing on May 17th to recall the FR’s chairman Sergei Mironov as its senator to the Federation Council, which would deprive him and his party of the chairmanship of the Russian Federal Assembly’s upper house (“Vladimir Putin uzhe znaet o planakh piterskikh ‘edinorossov’ otozvat’ spikera Soveta Federatsii Sergeya Mironova,” Ekho Moskvy, 4 May 2011). This appears to be a countermove to Surkov’s rumoured effort to commandeer the FR party for Medvedev.
Putin then announced a new Popular Front (PF) surely intended as a mechanism for the UR to retaining its majority and perhaps its two-thirds or ‘constitutional’ majority in the Duma. The UR’s Senior Deputy Secretary Andrei Isaev explicitly and specifically acknowledged the latter on May 11th (Aleksandra Samarina and Ivan Rodin, “Front dlya zakhvata konstitutsionnogo bolshinstva,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 12 May 2011). The Front is to rally public organizations and small political parties around the UR, the fortunes of which have been in decline lately. According to Putin, “Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev and I have talked on this account quite extensively. We have discussed all these issues. He supports what we are doing.” (“Medvedev supports creation of Popular Front – Putin,” Russia Today, 12 May 2011, www.russiatoday.com).
But Medvedev’s public response to the initiative was cool. He told journalists that Russian politics needs competition and uncertainty as to electoral outcomes and that the PF simply fell within the bounds of election law and normal political ‘technology.’ He commented that this was “only the beginning of the political season,” “that other political structures, bloks and parties will try to participate in the election campaign to the utmost,” and that “the appearance of this alliance will be accompanied even by attempts to create other electoral alliances and fora to attain maximal results in the elections.” He also stated that it was necessary that the vote produce a Duma that “reflects the preferences of all voters” without which “a balanced political system” will be impossible. He added: “I hope it (the election campaign” will be interesting.” He issued no endorsement (“Medvedev says political competition vital for Russia,” RIA Novosti, 12 May 2011, www.rian.ru and Ivan Rodin and Igor Naumov, “Nardonyi front obrel komanduyushchego,” Nezavismaya gazeta, 13 May 2011).
This was the second time Medvedev had raised the issue of “competition” in Russian politics and even within the tandem itself. On April 12th during his trip to China, Medvedev said in an interview on Chinese state television: “I do not rule out the possibility of running for a second term in the presidential elections. The decision will be taken very shortly.” For the first time, Medvedev seemed to suggest that the decision on whether or not he would run would be solely his own and not taken within the tandem, adding: “I and Vladmir Putin have the single task so that in ten to twenty years Russia will be one of the strongest and most powerful states in the world…We, perhaps, see the methods and ways of attaining this flowering differently, but this is democracy and this is competition” (“Medvedev ne isklyuchaet togo, chto budet ballotirovatsya na novyi srok,” Nezavismaya gazeta, 12 July 2011 and Matvei Ganapolskii, “V perevode s kitaiskogo,” Moskovskii komsomolets, 14 April 2011.
Whether Medvedev and Putin really are competing or in conflict already is unclear. However, if the tandem’s unity continues to be put under strain by the delay in making the decision on who will run, it may be left with a fait accompli. A deepening rift could force the tandem’s halves to run against each other. As I have written in the past this would be a good thing for Russian democracy; Medvedev’s and Putin’s close relationship would probably allow for continued comity between the two after the vote. In addition, the result would be a good teachable moment for Russia’s often conflictive political culture.
Medvedev and certainly Putin are both hesitant to support such an outcome. Medvedev probably understands that he would have difficulty defeating Putin. The latter has higher popularity ratings and greater control over the state’s administrative resources, which remain important in Russia’s less than free and fair elections. Putin, on the other hand, would resist such a contest because of fears it would split the ruling group and destabilize the country.
Although not impossible, there is still no conclusive evidence of a major rift within the elite or tandem that would spark open conflict and heated electoral competititon of the kind Russia had in the 1990s. Therefore, the most likely outcome is that the tandem will contain the rift, remain in place through the next presidential term’s first years, with Putin stepping down after the 2014 Olympic Games in favor of a new Prime Minister, present Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
However, tardiness in deciding who will run and prolonged flirtation with opposing political parties on the part of each of the tandem’s moving parts could undermine the unity of both the tandem and the regime, paving the way for political instability and what political scientists refer to as a ‘regime split’, often a prelude to regime transformation whether revolutionary or negotiated.
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