Paper no. 2608	05-Mar.-2008
RUSSIA’S CHANGE OF PRESIDENCY ANALYSED  By Dr. Subhash Kapila  Introductory Observations  On March 02, 2008 in the Russian presidential elections, Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev was elected as Russia’s next President to succeed President Putin in May 2008.  President Putin much in advance of the presidential elections had announced that Mr. Medvedev would be his choice for Russia’s next President, Speaking in December 2007.  President Putin had declared that: “If our people, Russian citizens give their vote of confidence to Dmitry Medvedev and elect him the new Russian President, I will also be ready to continue our joint work in this case as Chairman of the Government of The Russian Federation – without any changes in the (balance) of powers between the presidency and the Government”.  Consequently, in May 2008, Russia would witness a new political set-up – President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin at the helm of political affairs in Russia.  In Europe and the United States, the political change-over in Russia in May 2008 has been the subject of intense analysis and debate.  The stimulus for this debate lies less on the political functionality of the new set-up that will emerge in May 2008 and more on whether any change in political direction or changes in strategic outlook will emanate with a new Russian President in office.  Russia’s dynamic resurgence under President Putin in the last eight years has been deeply troublesome for the Western countries.  That this was to be expected stands elaborately analyzed in this Author’s SAAG Papers.  By a fortuitous combination of following circumstances for Russia this was analyzed as forthcoming (1) President Putin’s dynamic and assertive leadership (2) Economic revival generated by rising oil and gas prices (3) Russian nationalism surfacing intensely post-Yugoslavia’s Western engineered disintegration and condescending attitudes towards Russia and (4) United States and NATO’s strategic distractions in Afghanistan and Iraq.  The United States and European countries seemed to have not read accurately the circumstantial factors that were building up in favor of Russia’s resurgence.  Or the situation was under-read or misread.  Hence the avid focus on Russia presently with analysts stifling the sands for any faint evidence, however remote, to suggest that the new Russian political set-up may lessen Russia’s resurgence.  The situation has best been described by President-elect Medvedev’s Political Adviser Pavlousky who is reported to have remarked that the Western countries present ignorance of Russian events arise mainly from their having “slept through Russia’s rebirth”.  With such a backdrop, Russia’s change of Presidents is analyzed under the following heads:  President Putin’s Political Legacy President Putin’s Political Heir: Medvedev Russian Constitution Flexible Enough to Provide Dual Executive Power Sharing Medvedev – Putin Political Tussle: Fears Unfounded and Over-analyzed Russia’s Strategic Directions Will Not Change With Medvedev as President President Putin’s Political Legacy  President Putin when he lays down office in May 2008 would be leaving a formidable political legacy to live-up to for his successor Medvedev.  The salient features of his political legacy can be recounted as under:  Russia’s strategic resurgence has been so steered by President Putin that it is fast regaining its earlier position as an independent global power center. Consequently, European/NATO countries and Western allies in West Asia have sought to establish independent ties with Russia. Politically, President Putin enjoys more than 80% public popularity ratings within Russia on the strength of his strategic and economic achievements which have raised Russia’s stature, globally. Economically, President Putin’s firm handling of the economy has resulted in Russia today amassing US $ 100 billion in foreign exchange reserves besides repaying Soviet Union era foreign debts. Economically, within Russia, economic growth has been sustained between 7-8%, a rising middle class is emerging and the standard of living is going up. So therefore, when Medvedev assumes office, unlike when President Putin took over a strategically, politically and economically down and out Russia from Yellsin, President Medvedev would be taking over to manage a resurgent Russia.  With President Putin as the next Prime Minister in-tandem with President Medvedev, nothing should distract, impede or dissuade this duo from pushing the Putin legacy further to new heights.  President Putin’s Political Heir: Medvedev  President Putin had to make a choice from amongst his two First Deputy Prime Ministers, namely Sergei Ivanov (Former Defence Minister) and Medvedev (Putin former Chief of Staff in the Kremlin), Age-wise Medvedev at 42 years old is nearly 12 years younger than Ivanov.  Also Unlike Ivanov who shared an intelligence background with Putin, the same is not the case with Medvedev.  In fact President elect Dmitri Medvedev would be the youngest ever President of Russia, from the post-war generation and without an intelligence background.  President Putin’s preference for Medvedev apparently stems from a long 17 year political association in which Medvedev also rose politically coincident with Putin’s political rise.  Medvedev is reported to have done a commendable job in overhauling Russia’s judicial system with his background of have been a Law Professor earlier.  Medvedev has therefore been a familiar political face in Russian domestic politics.  Putin seems to have prepared him for this office by using him and exposing him to a wide spectrum of functions from reforming GAZPROM, agriculture, economic set-up, education and priority projects implementation.  It also needs to be emphasized that Medvedev’s considerable success in the presidential elections has to a large extent been facilitated by trsnference of Putin’s political popularity to Medvedev as President Putin’s political protégé and his preferred political choice for President.  Russian Constitution Flexible Enough to Provide Dual Executive Power Sharing  In the last two months there have been a large number of pessimistic forecasts predicting that this duo tie-up of Medvedev as President and former President Putin as Prime Minister will not be a functional arrangement going by the dominating stature of Putin and his achievements.  It is being said that there could be problems of constitutional tussles and deadlocks could emerge as Medvedev becomes more assertive and Putin finds his powers and say limited and that a re-writing of the Constitution may be required.  Informed observers both within Russia and the West with a good knowledge of Russia’s Constitution opine otherwise.  Some worthwhile relevant observations are reproduced below from Russian writings.  Prime Minister’s powers as it is are broad enough.  It is just that no one has used these powers in full, so far. Under the Russian Constitution, the Prime Minister and Government in general enjoy great weightage in terms of division of powers with the President. In Russia, it is the Government and the Prime Minister that are at the top of the Executive Branch. Under the Constitution, it is the Government that spells out many of the lines in domestic and foreign policies of Russia. The following observations from a recent article in the US magazine “Forbes’ adds some useful amplification to the above: Constitutionally Russia has a semi presidential system of Government.  Clear distinction exists between Head of Government (Prime Minister) and Head of State (President) with the Parliament (State Durma) confirming the Prime Ministers appointment. In a semi-presidential system, real presidential power can oscillate depending on political circumstances. Russia’s formal Constitutional rules are sufficiently flexible to accommodate a powerful President and a powerful Prime Minister Constitutional rules defining government powers are sufficiently broad to allow Putin to continue to wield sufficient influence as Prime Minister. The Russian Constitution provides interesting reading in terms of checks and balances and the world can hope that power sharing would not be much of a problem.  However, for those who predict gloom scenarios for this political set-up and count on Medvedev becoming powerful and assertive to sideline Putin as Prime Minister, need to be reminded that Putin’s political party has a two-thirds majority in the Durma which is enough to impeach the President should he be rearing for a show-down under external prodding.  Further, the Russian Constitution provides that on the impeachment of the President, the Prime Minister becomes the Acting President with powers to revise the Constitution.  Thus, Putin as Prime Minister enjoys strong leverages on both counts.  Medvedev – Putin Political Tussle Fears Unfounded and Over-analyzed  This possibility seems to have been inspired by those whose wishful thinking would like some window of vulnerability to emerge in the new political setup.  The Constitutional position outlined above does not seem to point in this direction.  In fact in the division of powers there are enough checks and balance to dissuade any political adventurism by any actor.  Further, it needs to be remembered that in President Putin’s blueprint for a resurgent Russia, Medvedev had a part to play in translating it into action first as Putin’s Deputy Chief of Staff, later as Chief of Staff and lately as First Deputy Prime Minister managing and monitoring implementation of priority projects.  Russia’s Strategic Directions Will Not Change With Medvedev as President  Russian nationalism has a messianic zeal and Russians in the past have paid heavy prices to see Russia as a great nation.  The last eight years under President Putin followed this mission of Russian re-surgence with a messianic zeal.  It would not be wrong to state that the resonance for President Putin’s dynamic leadership to restore Russia’s global strategic eminence was provided by the zeal of Russia’s masses.  President Medvedev is no lesser a Russian nationalist and his comparative youthfulness and exuberance could be expected to add more assertiveness to Russian resurgence.  While President Medvedev can be expected to make efforts to integrate Russia even more with Europe, one should not expect that he will change Russia’s strategic directions towards United States and the West to one of subservience or a Grade B status.  Russia’s build-up of its strategic assets initiated by President Putin can be expected to continue to reduce the qualitative differentials that had arisen in the USA-Russia strategic assets equation.  President Medvedev can be expected to exercise fully all the strategic and political leverages that President Putin employed in the last three or four years and the foreign policy strategic forays in Europe, West Asia and South East Asia..  Concluding Observations  Russia is on the threshold of regaining its earlier status as an independent global power center.  The Russia of 2008 is strategically, economically and politically stronger than the Russia of the 1990s.  Additionally, the political leadership in Russia today, whether outgoing President Putin or incoming President elect Medvedev are from the new breed of younger leadership with marked nationalistic fervor.  Objectively speaking, the next combination of President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin could be expected to fuel Russia’s resurgence with added vigor. (The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst.  He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group.  Email:drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com)
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