The state of patience

Posted on June 16, 2013 by

Undoubtedly, the political highlight of the past week was the founding congress of the All-Russian People’s Front (ONF), or, as it is now called, the People’s Front for Russia, the political project of the deputy head of the Presidential Administration, Vyacheslav Volodin, and a tribute act to its elected chairman, Vladimir Putin. Well, for Russia-watchers, at least. As Kirill Kobrin pointed out in this week’s Power Vertical Podcast, the congress did not manage to draw much attention, even in educated circles interested in politics. Almost concurrently, Sergey Sobyanin, the Mayor of Moscow who resigned on 4 June, announced that he would be running as an independent candidate rather than a candidate of United Russia. This is quite unsurprising: as I have remarked quite a while ago, Sobyanin most likely belongs to the power group led by Volodin. Therefore, the juxtaposition of the announcement and the congress of ONF may as well be symbolic. But are these momentous things, happening in the upper echelons of the elite really important only to those directly affected? The answer is a little more complicated.  

Continue reading →

Posted in Elections, Kremlinology, Society | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Unclear fission

Posted on May 31, 2013 by

The dismissal of Vladislav Surkov might just be the beginning of a serious rupture in the Russian political elite. Not that this is of any surprise. Surkov was a very important figure of the past fourteen years and he is the second first-class player of the regime to leave after the equally scandalous exit of Alexei Kudrin in 2011. Not only is it likely that the purge against the liberal and technocratic wing of the elite will continue and speed up, there is increasing talk about and evidence of an institutional split in the political elite. The question is: does this matter at all, and if yes, why?

Continue reading →

Posted in Kremlinology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Instead of a requiem*

Posted on May 11, 2013 by

Many articles, opinion pieces, alas, even political obituaries have been published in the past couple of days on Vladislav Surkov, the former ‘grey cardinal’ of Russian politics who was swiftly dismissed after a public spat with the Investigative Committee over corruption at the Skolkovo Foundation, one of the flagship projects of Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency. Wait a minute… could it be that I have already read similar articles about Surkov, not very long ago? Indeed: in December 2011, when Surkov, after failing to engineer the Duma elections smoothly enough was demoted to the government from his former position of deputy head of the Presidential Administration, many predicted a short but terminal agony (I did not exclude the possibility either). Nevertheless, what is startlingly similar in these two cases is that the grey cardinal of the Kremlin, the architect of the ‘sovereign democracy’, seemed to lose out on two equally banal and rookie mistakes. Did he really not see the 2011 protests coming? Did he really think that he can get away with a public attack on Putin’s ‘personal police’? What game is Surkov playing, actually? 

Continue reading →

Posted in Kremlinology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trial by legitimacy

Posted on April 26, 2013 by

Most Russia-watchers agree that the trial against Alexei Navalny signals the beginning of a new era in Russia. Indeed, there are a lot of similarities with the Khodorkovsky arrest (and trial) in 2003-04, which I will not enumerate in details, and enough differences for this trial to be called the beginning of the end of the Putin era as we know it. It is therefore worth some time to look at the legitimacy situation from a wider angle. What exactly can the Navalny trial do to the political system in Russia?

Continue reading →

Posted in Society | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

A permanent front line?

Posted on April 14, 2013 by

April can easily become a turning point in Russian politics. Оn 17 April, next Wednesday Dmitry Medvedev will address the State Duma to present the achievements of his government in the past year. He has all reasons to feel uncomfortable: despite a slight improvement in the recent past, the government’s popularity ratings are still hitting record low levels. Worse even, Medvedev has become the target of constant attacks in the past couple of months: the siloviki resurgence coupled with a fierce battle for the potential succession of Vladimir Putin set practically every power group against Medvedev. Some of them probably want to do away with the governing United Russia party as well, but his own party seems to rebel against the Prime Minister too. The last instance to mark this disarray was last week’s attacks on education minister Dmitry Livanov, in which some United Russia members willingly collaborated with Communist lawmakers. In fact, Livanov may be the second ’Medvedev minister’ forced to leave the government after Anatoly Serdyukov. At the same time, Vladimir Putin seems to feel that he has regained at least some of his famous confidence: so much, that he has apparently agreed to schedule a brand new edition of his infamous ’live shows’ for the end of April. Does this mean that the fortunes of Putin and Medvedev have irrevocably started to diverge? And in what way has the situation changed around Putin, anyway?

Continue reading →

Posted in Kremlinology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Clan War II

Posted on March 21, 2013 by

Would Vladimir Putin be willing to admit large-scale electoral fraud in order to call early elections and redraw the political map of Russia? Would he be willing to sacrifice key deputies from the United Russia party, accusing them with corruption, in order to ease the tension within the Russian society? Some might say yes: the recent series of scandals related to senior United Russia deputies and last week’s publication of a report by a think tank sponsored by a close ally of Putin, the head of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin, claiming that the governing party would have in fact finished second in 2011 without large-scale riggings both increase the possibility of early Duma elections. Furthermore, the adoption of a brand new electoral law is underway, a development which points in the same direction. But are these developments parts of a giant political plan or do we rather see two or three different political narratives in increasingly fierce competition? If the latter is true, the Russian elite have been thrown dangerously off balance.

Continue reading →

Posted in Kremlinology, Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Reset or upgrade?

Posted on March 1, 2013 by

Last week, the Minchenko Consulting published its newest report on the dynamics of the so-called Politburo 2.0 – a circle of influential politicians and businessman that make up the informal decision-making body around the President. The report, which is a must-read for Russia-watchers, as always, made some insightful points and drew some interesting conclusions. One of these was a topic I touched upon in my last blog post: the increasing possibility of the dismissal of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Another main conclusion was that early elections to the State Duma seemed to be more and more certain in the wake of the recent corruption scandals.

In today’s Power Vertical Podcast, Brian Whitmore, Kirill Kobrin and I will discuss these conclusions, so just like each week, or even more so, you should absolutely tune in. Below, I’ll try to explain my points on whether there is an upcoming reset of the elite and what I think about the topic of early elections.

Continue reading →

Posted in Kremlinology, Policies | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment