It now looks like the much-discussed "Putin Plan" is for the President to become Prime Minister.
With one fell swoop, Vladimir Putin laid to rest all of the kibitzing about who would be his successor and what his role might be after he leaves the presidency. All of the talk about the "2008 question," "operation successor," Medvedev vs. Ivanov, et cetera, can most likely be filed away as no longer relevant.
United Russia, the leading party in the Russian Duma, has named Putin as the top person in its "party list" of candidates for the upcoming Duma elections. Putin, in turn, has said that he would be happy to continue his political career as prime minister, as long as United Russia wins the Duma elections (virtually guaranteed) and as long as the new president is a "respectable, competent and efficient person." Given that Putin will be able to have a great deal of influence (perhaps even control) over who is elected president next March, it seems that he'll be able to ensure that a suitably "respectable" person is elected - and he'll probably pick someone who won't challenge him for the role of the country's leading politician.
The Russian presidency has just become an office that may no longer be of interest to some of those named most frequently as top candidates during the past year. In any event, the identity of the next president is now more of an academic question, the answer to a future trivia question (perhaps a bit like Malenkov in that sense) - it's certainly no longer the burning, speculation-fueling question that it's been for the past year or so.
  Путин возглавит «Единую Россию» на выборахПрезидент России возглавит список «Единой России» на выборах в Госдуму. «Я с благодарностью принимаю ваше предложение возглавить список «Единой России», — сказал В.Путин, выступая на 8-м съезде партии. Победа «Единой России» на выборах, по словам В.Путина — первое условие, обеспечивающее его согласие стать премьер-министром России после марта 2008 г. Далее |
In any event, it's amazing how quickly the March 2008 presidential elections have come to seem irrelevant. Today I attended a panel discussion which was not focused on the presidential succession question, but the news had to be discussed. One of the participants, a leading scholar of Russian politics visiting from Moscow, suggested that this must have been the first discussion in DC of the new reality of Russian politics. She noted that all of the discussion about successors could be forgotten, and that the power will be in the Prime Minister's office once Putin moves there.
According to her, Putin has been building a parallel power structure for some time and will use it to suck the air out of the vertical of power which was one of the main accomplishments of his time in office. Putin will inevitably have to undermine the presidency if he wishes to remain preeminent on the Russian political scene. She also noted that an interesting consequence will be that for the first time, the Prime Minister will be responsible for foreign and economic policy. This will lead to greater accountability, because in the past the PM has been able to serve as a sort of accountability buffer for the president.
It seems that this sensational news, or at least the method of its delivery, actually not much of a surprise. About ten days ago, I attended a presentation by a few people who were present at some or all of the Valdai Group's meetings in Kazan, Moscow and Sochi in September. One of the comments relayed from Russian political leaders was that Russia-watchers should keep a close eye on the United Russia party congress to take place October 1st and 2nd, and this turned out to be prescient advice. The assumption was that Sergei Ivanov might be the person tapped by United Russia - or rather by Putin, as Oleg Morozov, one of UR's leaders, admitted that the #1 spot on the party list would be decided by Putin and not by UR.
In a way, it seems like an ideal solution. The people get to have their fun with a more or less meaningless presidential election, and the section of the elite representing the "third term party" also gets the result they want, de facto if not de jure (and we all know that de facto is of much greater interest to the Russian leadership than de jure). The way of kicking off this transition-but-not-a-transition is rather sensational, in my opinion, but Putin becoming Prime Minister was a versiia that I'm sure got kicked around by Russian and/or Russia-watching pundits in the past couple of years. Still, now that it's actually unfolding it seems like a shock.
The only thing that is predictable about Russian politics (or at least about Putin, who seems determined to remain the sole source and arbiter of politics in the country) in this election cycle appears to be its unpredictability. It's amazing that in the pursuit of a stable, predictable system there have already been a couple of surprises - first, Zubkov's appointment, and now this. Assuming Putin can pull it off, and there's no reason to believe that he can't, it will be interesting to see what sort of modus vivendi he develops with the new president and how exactly he takes the various portfolios - foreign policy, economic policy, energy... - from the president's office to the PM's office. On the other hand, perhaps this will be quite simple - after all, much ink has been spilled discussing how power in Russia is contained in one man's hands. If that man just changes his title, why shouldn't all of the power migrate over to the new title with him. And as far as I know (though I haven't looked into it and I'm sure we'll be able to read more about it in the next couple of days), the Prime-Ministership doesn't have that pesky constitutional term limit. Interesting times.
[Update - a few other people are blogging about this today - Sean, Putinwatcher, and Russia Monitor's Jesse Heath. All worth a look.]
[Update 2 - there's sort of an open thread about this news at one of the most popular Russian LiveJournals, drugoi - 72 comments already.
The best photo I've seen so far is at this gazeta.ru story titled "Почему у нас не Туркменистан?"
And Lenta.ru introduces this article, which opines that "the campaign for the Fifth State Duma has ended, having barely started," with a quotation from Pushkin's Boris Godunov:
3RD PERSON. Listen! What noise is that?--The people groaned;]
See there! They fall like waves, row upon row--
Again--again-- Now, brother, 'tis our turn;
Be quick, down on your knees!THE PEOPLE. (On their knees, groaning and wailing.)
Have pity on us,
Our father! O, rule over us! O, be
Father to us, and tsar!
