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?

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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.

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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.

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A case for Medvedev

Posted on February 7, 2013 by

Dmitry Medvedev outlined an economic program stretching all the way to 2018, the date of the next presidential election. More importantly, he did it in the Kremlin, unlike any of his predecessors, in an apparent attempt to demonstrate he was still supported by Vladimir Putin. At the same time, a video, aimed at discrediting the Prime Minister for allowing international military action against Libya hit the news. More importantly, the video was published on a website linked to deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin, in an apparent attempt to showcase his ambitions. So how precarious exactly is Medvedev’s position? Who are the ones that stand in line? What does this mean for Vladimir Putin who is trying to seal a new contract with the elite?

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Closing holes on the horn of plenty

Posted on January 23, 2013 by

2013 in Russian politics will start with the first two important initiatives of Vladimir Putin, after irresolute fire-fighting in 2012, aimed at taking reasoned steps towards preserving his power in the longer term. The purpose of one of these is to seal a new deal with the elite, thus ensuring that infightings won’t affect the President himself. The other is the upcoming drafting of a new electoral law that will thoroughly revamp the present system. In a study longer and more exhaustive than the usual blog entries, I will try to take a closer look at this latter development.

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2012: not quite there yet

Posted on December 31, 2012 by

Many things that prominent Russia-watchers had expected didn’t happen in 2012. Most notably, the new opposition didn’t achieve a breakthrough in the regions, neither was Dmitry Medvedev dismissed, although in September these seemed all but imminent. Also, Vladimir Putin’s rating did not go steep downhill, but rather stabilised around 50% (47% according to FOM and 51% according to VTsIOM trusted Putin in December). Does this mean that nothing changed in the past year? Hardly. It does mean that Russia’s rulers avoided cathartic moments (and the opposition was unsuccessful in bringing such moments about), but there is ample evidence that the processes that should have driven the situation to the above extremes are still ongoing. This was the most important lesson of Vladimir Putin’s two speeches in December to the parliament and to the public.

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The kompromat bubble

Posted on December 8, 2012 by

There is a very unique Russian word that has haunted Russian politics ever since the fall of the Soviet Union: kompromat, a Russian-style contraction of ‘compromising material’. Kompromats have a lively culture in Russia. Creating a good kompromat has become something of an art. Mind you, in the past decade the state itself has helped a lot to maintain the tradition of kompromats as well, by creating regulations impossible to comply with and creating artificial rivalry between state structures. However, there are signs that this ‘kompromat-bubble’ is about to burst and create a mess like the housing bubble when it burst. 

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