Awaiting the Medvedev-Putin tandem

Russia’s Central Election Commission announced that, with the last ballots now counted, Medvedev’s final score from the election on March 2 was 70.28 percent.

But Medvedev seemed in no mood to prolong the spirit of the brief Red Square celebration he allowed himself, alongside Putin, on election night.

The youthful-looking 42-year-old who currently serves as first deputy prime minister has retreated from the public eye. In the two days following the election, his sole television appearance was been a Kremlin visit to report to Putin in the Kremlin, a standard ritual for ministers displaying their loyalty.

Medvedev, whose campaign slogan was “Plan Putin”, says he wants to follow in the president’s footsteps and he will make Putin prime minister after being inaugurated in May.
But many have expressed hope that Medvedev -- who at 42 is 13 years younger than Putin and has no past in the Soviet KGB secret police -- will at least give the hawkish Kremlin a softer face.

The White House said that President George W. Bush had phoned the president-elect to urge a close relationship and to say he “read with interest” remarks made by Medvedev concerning personal freedom.

But the thaw seemed more distant last Tuesday after the state-run natural gas monopoly Gazprom, which Medvedev chairs, announced it was cutting off half of neighboring Ukraine’s gas supplies because of unpaid debts.

A quarter of the supplies was cut on the day after the election. Then on Tuesday, a grim-faced spokesman said that “Gazprom is obliged to reduce gas supplies to the consumers in Ukraine by an additional 25 percent”.

Medvedev himself told Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko by telephone to make greater efforts to resolve the dispute, Russian news agencies reported.

An equally uncompromising position was displayed in Moscow when a small group of peaceful protestors tried to demonstrate against Medvedev’s crushing victory. Helmeted riot police simply swept them into buses before they had even gathered.

The independent Moscow analyst Boris Kagarlitsky said it was too early to guess at Medvedev’s intentions.
“There are no signals. It’s just business as usual”, he mused. “Medvedev is going to take over in May, so you can’t expect any changes until July or August”.

The key will be to watch whom Medvedev makes his chief of staff, Kagarlitsky said, citing rumors that this could be Alexander Voloshin -- a pro-business, liberal-minded figure who was appointed to the post under President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s before being fired by Putin in 2003.
“If Voloshin gets his job back, that will be a very important signal”.
But another analyst, Yevgeni Volk of the right-wing US Heritage Foundation, predicted that Medvedev’s administration would only be tougher.

The break-up of Monday’s demonstration “was just the beginning. This is nothing for Russia”, Volk said, blaming “the West, which does nothing to support democracy in Russia”.

Even Russians do not know what to expect. They may have voted in their millions for him, yet an independent poll released last week showed that many barely know their future leader.

Thirty five percent of people questioned by the Levada Center said they had difficulty in thinking of something they liked about Medvedev, while 67 percent were unsure of what they disliked.

Medvedev, who was in his mid-20s when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, has a very different background from Putin and will inherit sweeping presidential powers that Putin fortified.

Experts agree that Medvedev is likely to bring a new style of leadership to the Kremlin, but even if his strong and popular mentor Putin becomes prime minister, some are also asking: What if he brings new substance too?
“The most interesting time will be during the spring”, commented Alexei Malashenko, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.
“I have the impression that he is more independent than he appeared at first”.

In the three months since Putin endorsed Medvedev as his preferred successor and signalled he would remain in the picture as prime minister, the conventional wisdom has been that Putin would remain in charge.

Medvedev however moved quickly to begin to assert himself as his own man, telling a news conference in the early hours of March 3 that he would take charge of Russia’s foreign policy after assuming office.
“Foreign policy, according to the constitution, is determined by the president”, he said.

He also sought to dispel any confusion over who would be in charge of what if Putin becomes prime minister, saying the duties of the head of state and the head of government were distinct and clearly spelled out in the constitution.
Contrary to the popular perception, “Medvedev is in fact a very experienced politician, one of the most experienced in the country”, according to Vyacheslav Nikonov, a well-known analyst with the Fond Politika research group.

“It’s difficult to think of anyone in the country with more political experience, even if Putin has played a decisive role in Medvedev’s success”, Nikonov told the Vesti news network.

Western governments increasingly concerned about Putin’s uncompromising stands on a range of issues have voiced hope that Medvedev might bring a more liberal approach to managing Russian affairs than his predecessor.
Analysts say Medvedev would, in theory at least, have the power to do this.

“The post of president makes a weak politician strong. And then he begins to get rid of the people who brought him to power”, said Alexander Konovalov of Moscow’s Strategic Assessment Institute.

Others caution however that Medvedev is still politically beholden to Putin and while he may be given considerable leeway on presidential prerogatives of secondary importance, he will have little choice but to heed his mentor’s word.
“Some changes are inevitable with the election of Medvedev”, said independent political analyst Dimitri Oreshkin.
“But I think Putin will keep the most important areas, like finance, for himself, while Medvedev will have a purely decorative function, and this may be the best solution”.

European newspapers decry poll result
European newspapers heaped scorn on the result of the Russian presidential election.

Last Monday, newspapers in Germany, Italy and Britain highlighted the democratic failings of the election process in Russia, a key energy supplier to the European Union, and stressed that the result had been a foregone conclusion.
The Financial Times Deutschland said it would be “an insult to democracy” to speak of a democratic election.

“Serious candidates were impeded, as were opposition meetings”, the paper said, underlining that “Russia is and will remain an autocratic system”.

For the left-leaning Sueddeutsche Zeitung, “the democratic ritual has been so emptied of all its substance that for many [Russians] going to vote or not amounted to the same thing”.

The paper also stressed slowing economic growth in Russia, meaning Medvedev “is not going to have as easy a task as Putin”.

The Frankfurter Rundschau said that “the presidential vote was manipulated in the same way” as parliamentary elections in December.

London’s right-of-center Daily Telegraph noted sardonically in its editorial: “As during Soviet times, Russians have trudged dutifully to the polls. Everyone knows who will win, but the process must be given a patina of respectability”.
It added: “There is a direct link between authoritarianism at home and assertiveness abroad. ...It need hardly be said that a genuinely free Russia would be a more reliable international partner, as well as a better place to live”.
In Italy, the Corriere della Serra headlined: “Triumph for Medvedev who stood without a rival”.

The Turin-based newspaper La Stampa, in a long analysis of the election, referred to “a democracy that many consider mutilated, even destroyed” and said “many democratic elements have been given fatal blows [under Putin]: a press free to criticize, an independent justice system, and federalism rather than centralism”.

Russian press upbeat on Medvedev ‘triumph’

Medvedev’s win was hailed by Moscow’s mainly pro-Kremlin press, even as some pondered the ramifications of the stage-managed handover.

The racy tabloid Tvoi Den was upbeat about the election, declaring that “Russians supported Putin’s choice”, backing the outgoing president’s favored candidate.
The popular Izvestia newspaper declared the vote a “triumph of the majority” that created a “bridge to the future for Russia”.

That bridge, the paper explained, was triangular in design, based on Medvedev as president, outgoing President Vladimir Putin in a new role as prime minister, and the ruling United Russia party.

“The convincing win... is further proof of the support of the absolute majority of the population for the course taken by Vladimir Putin and United Russia”, Izvestia said.
Opponents have criticized the poll as irregular. The European Uniondeplored that the election was not held on a level playing field.

“The EU... regrets that the electoral process did not allow for truly competitive elections”, a statement said.
“The lack of equal media access for the opposition candidates is of particular concern”.
But Putin defended the election as “strictly in accordance with the constitution”.

The business newspaper RBK said the strong showing for Medvedev gave the Medvedev-Putin tandem “carte blanche for extraordinary measures in case of crisis in the economy”.
The mass circulation tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda described the vote as the second of two referendums on the course set by Putin, the first being a parliamentary poll in December that was won by his United Russia party.

“Yesterday’s vote can be considered a convincing conclusion to this referendum”, the paper said.

Moskovsky Komsomolets acknowledged that there were shortcomings to the vote, saying it might appear a “parody” of Western democracy. But it insisted Russia was gradually being weaned off autocratic rule.

“Against the grey and unpleasant background there are bright spots. One is that in the exchange of Putin for Medvedev, however formally, all democratic procedures written into the law were observed”, the paper commented. “Russia has taken the first step to moving away from its love of autocratic rule”.

The independent business daily Vedomosti wrote that a result by Medvedev similar to Putin’s in 2004 would make for a stable tandem.

It went on to say that the Russian constitution allowed for considerable overlap of powers between president and prime minister and that Putin and Medvedev would have to avoid undermining each other’s authority.

“Medvedev’s task will be to prevent the bureaucracy from viewing Putin as a man on the way out. Putin’s will be to avoid allowing a situation where Medvedev is seen as a puppet”, Vedomosti argued.

The Russian edition of Newsweek magazine meanwhile said that “two centers of power” will appear in Russia. It predicted that Putin was ready to concentrate on economic policy and to leave Medvedev a free hand in foreign policy.

Bush seeks ‘close’ ties

US President George W. Bush told Medvedev by telephone that he hoped they could have a “close working relationship”, a White House spokesman said.

“President Bush told Mr. Medvedev that he looks forward to working with him and that he hopes the two can establish a close working relationship that will help them deal with important world issues”, said spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
Bush also alluded to US concerns about the fairness of Russia’s elections, which have drawn criticism from international observers, as well as worries that democratic reforms are in retreat in Washington’s former Cold War foe.
“President Bush said that he had read with interest Mr. Medvedev’s recent remarks on personal freedoms, independent media, rule of law and fighting corruption”, the spokesman said in a statement.

Before Bush made his phone call, Johndroe had said the US president “looks forward to working with” Medvedev, citing efforts to battle terrorism, transnational crime, and the spread of dangerous weapons as key issues for cooperation.

Gorbachev for democratic reform in Russia
For his part, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev called for democratic reform in Russia in an article released following Medvedev’s win.

Declaring that Russia “has only one future -- democracy”, the Nobel Peace Prize winner said in a comment piece in an The Times’s that problems “can only be solved in an environment of real democracy”.

Russia had “an opportunity to take advantage of the stability and confidence achieved in the past few years, and of the favorable international markets, to move decisively on the path of modernization.

“We need to modernize governance, create an innovative economy, re-emphasize education and health and, as top priority, work to narrow the gap between rich and poor while fighting corruption and bureaucracy”.

Gorbachev called for a reform of Russia’s electoral system to allow voters to choose both party lists as well as individual candidates and also suggested lowering the threshold for a party’s entry into the Duma to five percent from the minimum seven-percent minimum level.

He added that regional governors should be chosen by a popular vote, rather than the current system whereby the president’s choice is approved by regional legislatures.
Addressing the Western media, Gorbachev wrote, “Our people are more democratic than you think... our people can learn from their past. They will make the right choices -- what to accept and what to reject”.

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