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Having kept everyone guessing for most of 2007, Putin announced in December that he endorsed the candidacy of Dmitry Medvedev, a long-time ally from St Petersburg who now doubles as deputy prime minister and chairman of Gazprom, the giant gas monopoly. Medvedev has the whiff of a reformer about him: he is young, reasonable and relatively liberal. But - being outside the tight-knit circle of current and former security officers that dominate Russian politics today - Medvedev has no power base of his own. So he immediately announced that he would appoint Putin as his prime minister. An overwhelming majority of Russians want Putin to continue to run things so they will happily vote for Medvedev to keep Putin. This implies at least another four years of Putinism – this curious mix of formal democratic rules and widespread disregard for civil liberties; and of capitalism and government intervention in ‘strategic’ sectors. However, the new government will have to work just that little bit harder to perpetuate the economic boom and political stability that Russians have enjoyed ever since Putin took over from Boris Yeltsin at the end of 1999. First, opinion surveys show that Russians are suspicious of democracy but adore strong leadership. The experiment of having a dual reign - the president has strong formal powers while a prime minister Putin would presumably have the last say in practice – is risky. Any sign of weakness at the top could upset the fragile truce between various clans that jostle for positions in the Kremlin and the wider country. Given that the state now has a tight grip over the massive oil and gas sector (as well as other lucrative industries, such as gem stones and weapons), a power struggle in Russia is invariably a struggle for very large sums of cash. The stakes are high, as is the potential for foul play in a country that has no established property rights or political institutions. Second, after almost a decade of uninterrupted growth, Russians have become accustomed to rising incomes. Continued economic growth will no longer be enough to make them love their new government. Russia’s growing middle class will demand better public services in healthcare, transport and education. The government has cash to throw at the problem (the budget is in surplus and the oil stabilization fund has amassed $145 billion). But real improvements would need a reform of the bloated, inefficient and corrupt state administration - a gargantuan task. If trouble is brewing at home, the new government may be tempted to boost its popularity through foreign policy action. Russians have generally backed Putin’s angry, sometimes aggressive stance towards the United States and the European Union, and his occasional bullying of smaller neighbours in the former Soviet Union. So if the West expects a more pliant Russia after 2008, it will probably be disappointed. Americans and (somewhat belatedly) the Europeans too are admitting to themselves that they have little influence over Russia’s internal development. But they need a Russia that co-operates with (or at least does not block) Western initiatives to stop WMD proliferation, stabilize the Balkans and fight climate change. On many international problems, Russia’s interests and those of the West actually overlap. But Russia will only acknowledge this if it is treated with the respect it thinks it deserves as a restored great power.
Centre for European Reform © CER 2008 |
