To leave and stay at the same time
The handover of power in Russia is
confounding one and all. Eric
Walberg looks into the crystal ball
As
expected, the Russian presidential elections went smoothly, with
Dmitri
Medvedev reaping a comfortable 70 per cent of the vote, and a
robust turnout
of 70 per cent, virtually tied with President
Vladimir Putin's 71 per cent
in 2004. The Communists garnered a
surprising 18 per cent, despite what both
they and foreign observers
claimed were clear violations of procedure in
some districts.
However, even the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe
concluded the vote reflected the will of the people.
"Together
we can continue the course set by President Putin.
Together we'll go
further. Together we'll win," Medvedev, dressed in
jeans and a black leather
jacket, told a crowd who braved driving
sleet to cheer him after the tally.
Medvedev did not campaign and
refused to take part in televised debates.
However, no one questions
his right to move into Russia's powerful
presidential seat, despite
his tender 42 years and the fact that he has
never been elected
before.
Frustrated Western commentators denounced
the elections. Italy's La
Stampa referred to "a democracy that many consider
mutilated, even
destroyed." With the remarkable turnaround of Russia's
fortunes
under Putin, they have reverted to the arcane science of
Kremlinology, dismissing Russian public life; instead, sifting
through
bits of media fluff — who's sitting next to whom at
meetings, etc — to try
to gaze into Russia's political future. While
this can be amusing, it's not
necessary in order to see the broad
outlines of what is happening.
In
his eight years at the helm, Putin reversed Russia's decline and
is
deservedly admired and respected. At the same time, the robber-
baron
plutocracy he inherited did not magically reform itself, but
seems to have
settled in to a quasi-state-
power centres —
"clans" is a word casually thrown around in the
Western media, with Putin
supposedly keeping the lid on their
desires to expand their influence.
Remarkably, to the extent that
this scenario indeed reflects the reality,
Putin himself has not
staked out a personal economic empire, unlike his
ne'er-do-well
predecessor Boris Yeltsin.
Though the latter is
universally reviled now, much as is his own
predecessor Mikhail Gorbachev,
Yeltsin is at least given credit for
plucking the incorruptible ex-KGB agent
Putin from obscurity and
letting him clean up some of the mess he created,
though Putin was
forced to agree to leave Yeltsin and his cronies alone,
which he did.
Now the tables have turned somewhat. Putin could easily
retire as
did Yeltsin and bask in his deserved fame. He could easily have
agreed to calls to amend the constitution to allow him to continue
indefinitely as president. Instead, he chose to pass the torch to a
young liberal lawyer with no background in the security forces, and
to
take on the much less prestigious, much harder task of prime
minister. It's
the PM who takes the heat when the economy screws up.
He can be dismissed
along with the cabinet by the president.
But what is so enigmatic about
this? Russia now has some law and
order, some stability, some credibility as
a bulwark against Western
imperial pressures. Time to move on. All
indications are that Putin
will continue to be an important political force,
quite possibly
taking on the delicate but important task of taming the
siloviki
(referring to the security forces) who are trying to consolidate
their economic power with the new, equally clean president backing
him
up.
The Western view is that Medvedev is merely a puppet that Putin will
manipulate and discard if he doesn't prove up to the task, a weak
and
hopefully harmless compromise candidate who will ensure that the
privileges
of Russia's political clans are preserved and kept under
control. That this
is in the Russian tradition of the dictator and
his circle choosing someone
who will not rock the boat.
In fact, none of his predecessors were
shrinking violets, even the
cautious Brezhnev, who pushed aside his patrons
and effectively
destroyed the system he inherited by trying not to rock the
boat too
much. But Medvedev is no Brezhnev. It is very unlikely that he's a
Gorbachev either. The nightmare that perestroika resulted in is all
too
fresh in Russians' minds. Nor is there the same desperate need
to radically
change the system as there was with Stalin or
Khrushchev.
The
political landscape eight years on has already changed radically
from the
days of Yeltsin. Not only are the Westernisers cowed, but
the Communists are
now the loyal, if slightly put-out, opposition —
a complete reversal of the
legacy that Yeltsin bequeathed Putin.
Yes, Russia has effectively reverted
to a one-party state, though
unlike the Communist days, there is lots of
room for criticism. Like
its Soviet predecessor, Russia has a vital role to
play in the world
as the brave voice that will speak out against US
imperialism. These
realities are Putin's most enduring legacy. It is
unlikely that
Medvedev will discard them. Furthermore, he has staked out his
intentions to engage the private sector, as opposed to his rival
Deputy
Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov's desire to establish new state-
run
corporations.
As for Putin, it seems that he is getting ready to role up
his
sleeves and tackle the troubling stranglehold that economic elites
still have on Russian life. He is certainly the inspiration for
Medvedev's announcement that government officials should not hold
positions on boards of companies. "Truly independent directors
should
replace them," Medvedev has made clear. Which means he will
himself resign
as chairman of Gazprom and surely insist that Kremlin
Personnel Manager
Viktor Ivanov resign as chairman of Almaz-Anbtei,
Minister of Education
Andrei Fursenko as chairman of Ronsnanotekh,
and Kremlin aide Sergei
Chemezov as chairman of Rosoboronexport, all
protégés of Putin. The recent
arrest of the notorious mafia kingpin
Semyon Mogilevich is also a hopeful
sign of things to come. Putin
already created an investigative commission to
operate in parallel
with the prosecutor-general'
chaired by Aleksandr Bastrykin.
Last October
in Kommersant, head of Federal Drug Control Service
Viktor Cherkesov called
for a ceasefire among warring siloviki,
warning that state corporatism,
credited with saving Russia, would
collapse if the infighting continued.
Analyst Alexander Golts
explains, "they stood together as long as they were
robbing others
of their assets. But after dividing the spoils, they realised
that
they can only expand their wealth by robbing one another."
That all
this is public knowledge shows that no one is deemed
untouchable. Can
Medvedev/Putin call a truce among the warring
Kremlin factions, and
strengthen judicial independence? Or is the
intent to pursue the "sovereign
democracy" which now seems to be the
norm, establishing an acceptable pax
putina within the economic
elite, a kind of neo-tsarism?
This is
clearly uncharted territory. Everyone agrees that the future
of the
political (and, by implication, bureaucratic) diarchy will
keep Russians,
indeed the world, guessing which of the two has more
political clout. It is
quite possible that Medvedev will continue to
take directions from Putin.
Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the
Institution for Globalisation Studies and
Social Movements in
Moscow, worries, "will the bureaucratic machine be
efficient now
that neither the law nor the internal administrative
regulations say
how it must function?" Kagarlitsky argues that the
transformation of
the president into the PM could paralyse the presidential
administration and the cabinet of ministers, that this move is a
blunder, a dangerous game — to leave and stay at the same time.
Is
this a replay of the legendary Russian tragedy of Boris Godunov,
regent to
Tsarevich Feodor, or a heroic and brilliant strategy to
continue Russia's
return to health? Perhaps it will be clearer by
this summer, when Russia
sends a delegation to the Group of Eight
meeting in Japan. Will Putin
attend, or Medvedev, or both?
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly.
You can reach him at
www.geocities.
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