Putin The Rational Actor?

Things are moving quickly in Ukraine, and it seems that everyone has an opinion.  Many of the long-time Russia watchers have been saying “I told you so”, but as usual, that is annoying and unhelpful. 

At this point, the question must be asked, “What if Putin is not a rational actor?”  And if he is not a rational actor, what happens then?  Does Russia’s Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, follow through anyway?  My gut says yes.  And after the heights of pandering that were reached at the Federation Council on Saturday night [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlc4-VMDlOM&feature=youtu.be], it is safe to say that there are no checks on Putin’s power.  And who can or will challenge Putin at this point?  It is becoming clear that the West will not or cannot act in a meaningful way.  There were rumours floating around last night about Germany dragging their feet on revoking Russia’s membership in the G8.  And NATO’s statement last night echoed support for Ukraine’s sovereignty [http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_107681.htm], but gave no consequences for what would happen if Russia did not honor it.

Lithuania and Poland reportedly called for consultations according to NATO’s Article 4 [http://www.lithuaniatribune.com/64476/lithuanian-polish-presidents-call-for-nato-treaty-article-4-consultations-201464476/], but the Rasmussen denied this at a press conference last night.

Even the option where Tymoshenko goes to Moscow and hands over Crimea to Putin, but heroically averts World War 3, is off the table.  But I would not exactly discount that at this point.  Maybe it would not be Tymoshenko, but another Ukrainian politician.

So the answer lies with Dmitry Medvedev’s government.  But it has been declawed and defanged.  The final humiliation in September 2011 was… well, it was final.  Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin threatened dire economic costs for taking Russia to the brink of war [https://twitter.com/Aleksei_Kudrin/status/439774457453092864], but he is not even in the Government anymore.  The current Finance Minister, Anton Siluanov, is probably also unhappy, but he doesn’t have much clout either.

The Ministry of Defence is probably eating this up. I imagine that they have dreamed of this for years.

And who else is there?  There isn’t anybody.  There is no respected voice of reason in the Russian establishment who is willing to speak up and call this a massive miscalculation.

Even if there were a group large enough or powerful enough to oust Putin, who would or could they replace him with?  How do you reconstitute Putinism without Putin [https://twitter.com/MarkGaleotti/status/440015534533660672]? You cannot.  It is impossible.  The whole system (and all that lovely money) would collapse.  But it may do so anyway.

In the end, Putin has fractured his own elites to such an extent that a coup is nearly impossible.  They could not coordinate an overthrow because they’d be too busy bickering over who got what and how much.  And forget an agreement on a replacement.  They had a compromise figure in Medvedev, and that completely failed. 

So where does this leave us?

Putin sits down for talks, pushes the Western powers as far as he can (everything east of the Dnipro?), and declares himself “satisfied”.  Then whatever is left of Ukraine becomes a kind of buffer state with Polish and Lithuanian troops protecting it.  And this becomes the status quo until something else goes wrong. 

 

Ministry of Construction and Housing and Utilities

Dmitry Medvedev’s Government got a new ministry last week.  The former Federal Agency for Construction and Housing and Utilities was elevated to the Ministry of Construction and Housing and Utilities by President Vladimir Putin.

Utilities and housing have been a problem in Russia throughout Putin’s rule, and something that people feel strongly about since it effects their daily lives and routines.  A rate freeze on domestic utilities has been proposed for next year due to concerns about inflation [http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/sechin-backs-tariff-freeze-and-boasts-40-increase-in-capitalization/486573.html].  By elevating construction, housing and utilities to a ministerial position, Putin seems to be indicating that he understands that this subject is important.  This was emphasized during his first meeting with the new Minister, Mikhail Men [http://www.kremlin.ru/news/19529].

So Putin has just placed the problem of construction, housing, utilities directly in Prime Minister Medvedev’s lap.  So when the newly formed ministry fails to enact real reform (and it will fail), the blame will fall on Medvedev and his government.

Newly appointed Minister Mikhail Men’s career is filled with holes, but his main claim to fame seems to be his father, the famous Soviet priest Alexander Men, who was assassinated in 1990 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Men].  Mikhail Men was a deputy mayor in Moscow, and then Governor of the Ivanovno region (I am still trying to track down dates on those).  In addition to his political activity, Men [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Men_Project] is also a professional musician who released a hard-rock album in 2004.  Like Dmitry Medvedev, he is also a fan of Deep Purple.  So the Putin team’s bench is a little longer than we thought, but if all they’re looking for is someone to play seat warmer, they could pick any fan of Deep Purple on the streets of Moscow or any city in Russia.

Putin’s Pike

Vladimir Putin’s fishing expedition in Tyva lit up the Russian blogosphere over the weekend.  There were lots of bromance jokes about Putin and Medvedev, and debates about the size of the fish Putin caught (conclusion: much smaller than the claimed 21kg).

But there was also an interesting post by Andrei Malgin on his LJ blog with the conspiracy theory that the fishing trip did not take place at all.  And that the photos released were actually from a previous trip to Tyva in 2007.  He notes that the Kremlin never noted Putin’s visit to Tyva on the dates he was allegedly there.  Furthermore, the Kremlin press pool was not informed of the trip, nor were they present.  Finally, the cutter Shoigu and Putin are in has an MChS (Emergencies Ministry) tag on it.  This is important because Shoigu was the long-time Minister of the Emergencies Ministry until last year.

The evidence does not look good, but… here is the thing: we know Peskov lies.  It is an open secret in Moscow.  Someone once joked, “When Peskov lies, you know he is lying, and he knows that you know he is lying.”  Frankly, I don’t think he can help himself.  But there is a difference between lying in an interview about how much Putin’s pike weighed (and who really cares anyway?), and posting photos that are 6 years old and trying to pass them off as being only a week old.  Why would you lie about something like that?  What does it get you?

One commenter joked: “Maybe Putin has already died, and we don’t know it.”

Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov denied on Sunday that the photos were from the 2007 trip.

Dear Dokku Umarov, I Also Have Questions

As previously noted, on Friday April 13th, Kavkaz Center posted what they claimed to be a new video of Dokku Umarov, self-proclaimed leader of the Caucasus Emirate.  The video was titled “Dokku Umarov Answers Questions”.  And for 20 minutes that is exactly what Umarov does.  He reads a question, and then he answers it.  He reads another question, and he answers it.  Umarov gives no indication of where he got the questions he claims are from “Caucasian journalists”, but they have been written out on a piece of paper that he reads from.

 

 

The video itself is reminiscent of previous videos submitted by the Caucasus Emirate. Umarov is shown sitting on a rug in a room with no natural light.  On the wall behind him is black flag of the Caucasus Emirate, and a green wall peaking out from behind that.  Umarov himself is wearing all black.  However, unlike previous videos, the distracting background noise in this one was kept to a minimum, with only one other person coughing in the background a few times throughout the video that lasts 20 minutes.

Umarov again denies that there is a split in the leadership of the Caucasus Emirate, saying that it is all just rumours and gossip.  However, he does not present Gakayev and Vadalov as proof, so it is difficult to determine if there is actually any truth in his claims.

The most emotion that Umarov shows in the video is when he is discussing the price the Americans have placed on his head under the Rewards for Justice program.  In fact, he appears very smug about the fact that he is worth $5 million to the Americans, and mentions it repeatedly.  While this is not a lot of money (for comparison, Ayman al-Zawahiri is worth $25 million, and Mullah Omar is worth $10 million under the same program), it is enough to make Umarov self-satisfied about his position as a leader in the worldwide Islamic jihad.

I am not convinced that the video is entirely legitimate.  While the man in the video is almost certainly Dokku Umarov, I have a hard time believing that the video was taken last month.  There are several odd choppy cuts at the end, and Umarov never mentions the alleged assassination attempt on Russia’s President-elect Vladimir Putin, or gives any proof that the video was taken in March 2012.  In addition, the topics that he chooses to discuss are somewhat dated.  The Americans placed Umarov on the Rewards For Justice list in May 2011. The split with Gakayev & Vadalov was allegedly resolved last July. That being said, Umarov does not say anything that would indicate the opposite either.

In the end, there was very little new information offered in the video.  The video is called “Umarov answers questions” but, quite frankly, I still have questions.  Why does he not mention Gakayev & Vadalov by name?  Why doesn’t he mention Vladimir Putin’s reelection?  Why doesn’t he mention the Russian opposition?  Is the moratorium on civilian targets over now that Vladimir Putin has been reelected?  These are just some of the questions I would like Dokku Umarov to answer.  Maybe he will take the time to answer them in his next video.

The Caucasus Emirate

I am veering away from my usual topics (the elite in Moscow) to talk about the latest Dokku Umarov video. I am doing so because while Umarov is physically far away from Moscow and its elites, he seems to be more aware of what is taking place there politically than the elites are.  And he is taking advantage of the weakness that the Putin regime has portrayed (and is continuing to portray) in its moment of political crisis.

The latest video was posted two days ago on the rebel website Kavkaz Center, with the headline: “Dokku Umarov has changed the status of the population of Russia, and gave the order to avoid attacks on civilian targets.”  Umarov’s stated reason was that in protesting the falsified elections, the civilian population is currently in direct conflict with the regime, and therefore deserving of this moratorium.

While the man in the video was almost certainly Umarov, the sudden and remarkable change in tactics shows that Umarov may not be the one making all of the decisions anymore.  In bringing Vadalov & Gakaev back into the fold last summer, some concessions were probably made about how decisions are reached within the Caucasus Emirate.  Neither Vadalov nor Gakaev were in this most recent video, and Umarov made no mention of them.  However, I find it very doubtful that they are not participating in discussions on tactics, and strategies, and targets.  In fact, I would be willing to posit that the two are very much involved in the larger tactical plans.

Umarov and the Caucasus Emirate leadership seek to portray the Putin regime as weak, but they are weak too. Umarov may have been trying to project strength here, but everything about this video (except for the great graphics in the first 35 seconds) screamed weakness.  He’s sitting out in the cold snow, and he is obviously in pain.  A terrorist attack in Moscow, or anywhere outside the North Caucasus, has not been staged for a little over a year (since Domodedovo).  We have not really heard anything from Riyadus-Salikhin since then.  They tried to claim responsibility for the assassination of Yuri Budanov last June, but no one really took them seriously.  And as for Khamzat, the supposed leader of Riyadus-Salikhin, we saw him the last time we saw Umarov (back in October) when Umarov declared that Khamzat had not been killed in Istanbul.

As a political strategy, this moratorium is a good one, but in practical terms, it is highly doubtful that the Caucasus Emirate is currently capable of attacking even a soft target in Russia’s heartland.

Competing factions, competing ideas, competing numbers

In my last post, I laid out the three options that Putin’s campaign had to win the presidential election on 4 March.  As we get down to the last month before the election it is important to see how things are progressing, and if any decisions have been made by Putin, and his campaign committee.  As I noted before, Vyacheslav Volodin is leading the campaign this time around.  There are, however, still competing ideas for a strategy to win.

On the one hand, there is a group that is advocating a second round win.  Remember, in this scenario, Putin gets between 45-50% of the vote. High enough to look good compared to Zyuganov’s second place 11%, but low enough that a second round is required.  Promoted by Stanislav Belkovsky, the group is arguing that a “clean” second round would lend legitimacy to Putin’s next administration.  While this is most likely true, and would be the smartest way to go, it does not appear that Volodin is willing to go this route.

Moskovsky Komsomolets is reporting that a message has been sent to the regions that certain results are expected.  This is what happened in the Duma elections last fall, where the governors were told that a certain threshold was required percentage-wise.  We all saw what has happened to those governors who failed to meet that standard: they were fired (e.g. Volgograd, Arkhangelsk, and Vologda).

Nevertheless, the numbers posted last week by FOM, & Levada make it seem like a second round is practically inevitable.  Levada conducted an “open survey”, and did not give the respondents a list to choose from.  Only 37% of those polled said that they would vote for Putin if the election were held on Sunday.  FOM questioned 3000 potential voters, and got a result of 45%.  Both of these numbers, if accurate, would automatically mean a second round of voting. However, VTsIOM came up with a much higher number of 52% for Putin.

While the statistics of these organisations have been called into question, the numbers themselves do not really matter. The way in which they are reported, however, do.  This campaign is all about perceptions.  Putin understands this important fact.  This is why we are not seeing him as much, and why he is meeting with small groups of university students, and judo pupils, rather than large groups (as seen in this video from Sky News).

As far as the articles that Putin has been publishing laying out his alleged agenda for his next term, I am not sure that they have much value as a campaign strategy.  They appear to be more valuable as a starting point for dialogue within society about such subjects.  This may be the best thing Putin will do for society this year.

Note: I would highly recommend viewing Amanda Walker’s Sky News piece (not only for the gem clip of Putin speaking English).

Churov & Election 2012

The head of Russia’s Central Elections Commission Vladimir Churov came out to talk to Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) on Thursday.  He once again defended his role as Commissioner by claiming very little fraud occurred in the December Duma elections.

Churov also repeated his claim that they are preparing to install transparent ballot boxes in 30,000 polling stations across Russia for the March Presidential Elections.  This is only about 1/3 of all polling stations.  The Commission is also working on setting up webcams in “nearly all polling stations”, though Churov gave no indication of what “nearly all” actually equals to as a concrete number.

While Ekho Moskvy, and its audience, got nothing really new from the interview, it was interesting to witness the effort that the Kremlin is making to explain themselves.  Ekho Moskvy appeals to a very specific audience, the educated, liberal, middle class.  Many of its listeners are the same people who attended the mass meetings on Bolotnaya, and Sakharova in December.

But what does Churov’s interview mean for the coming Presidential election?  I am still not convinced that the Kremlin has decided on a strategy, but I have some ideas.

According to the most recent poll from VTsIOM, if the election had been held on 25 December 2011, Vladimir Putin would have gotten 45% of the vote.  Even though Putin’s next closest rival, Communist Party Leader Gennady Zyuganov, received only 10% of the vote, Putin would still be 6 percentage points under the required amount to prevent a run-off.

At this point, Putin, and his campaign team, have a few options.  They can stick with their current strategy, campaign mildly, and get the approximate amount the VTsIOM poll shows (give or take a couple points).  They would then be forced into a run-off with Zyuganov, where Putin would probably win in a landslide.

Another option would be to take a small win in the first round.  This would be something over 51%, but under 60%.  However, this is risky because of the amount of perceived fraud that took place in the Parliamentary elections last month.  A small win could be within an arguable margin of error, and lead to more protests.

The last option would be to take a large win in the first round (say 65%, for a round number).  This is also a risk because the larger win could be indicative of massive fraud, and could also force more protests.

As far as I can tell, these are the choices that are open.  Do you have other ideas?  What would you choose?

United Russia

United Russia is still in the process of holding their “primaries” in order to create their party lists for their big conference in September (as far as I can determine, this is something like National Conventions in the US, but probably not as fun).  The Moscow Times had a piece today outlining how the primaries are going, but the process is so convoluted and confusing that it is a wonder anyone follows it.  But that might be the point, to make it so confusing that people don’t want to follow it.

Anyway, it raised a few questions in my mind, not the least of which is this: if Deputy PM Igor Sechin is actually running for a seat in the Duma (which I still think is slightly shady, to say the least), does that mean he is a member of United Russia?  I know that something like 5 members of the Russian Government are registered members of United Russia, but I’ve never been able to quite pin down who those 5 (or so) people are.

• Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik (maybe);
• Deputy PM Vyacheslav Volodin (was a member before becoming Deputy PM, and never resigned, I think);
• MChS Minister Sergei Shoigu (supposedly a founding member);
• Vladimir Putin (apparently still is not a member, but in charge, anyway… whatever);
• Deputy PM Dmitry Kozak (I think);
• Deputy PM Alexander Zhukov (actually, I am pretty sure that he is a member);
• Sergei Sobyanin (might have been, but he doesn’t count anymore because he’s Mayor of Moscow)…

Obviously, my list is incomplete, and full of holes.

I wonder if it bothers Putin and Co that we laugh at them behind our hands (and sometimes more publicly) for the mockery they continue to make of themselves.  But how can anyone actually take them seriously?  And at this point, why do they even bother?  I know the answer, of course, legitimacy.  But how much legitimacy can you have when you act in this manner?

EDIT: Slon.ru had a piece this morning (or morning my time, anyway) on the illegality of allowing members of the Government to participate in the Putin’s Peoples Front (or ONF).  The article actually names names.  The names include the ones I named previously, and a few more that I missed:

• Minister of Natural Resources Yuri Trutnev (who is running in the primaries, as far as I know); and
• First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov.

No Commentary

This next piece needs to be shared in its entirety without any of my own opinions attached to it, I think.  The only thing I will say is that Andrei Piontkovsky’s ending prediction came as something of a surprise.

A fundamental difference between developments in Russia 20 years ago and in Central Europe and the Baltic countries is that Russia has never had a democratic revolution.

The driving force of change was the ruling nomenklatura, which conceived and implemented a plan to convert its absolute collective political power into huge financial power for its individual members.

All the golden dreams of the Communist Party and KGB nomenklatura, which launched perestroika in the mid-1980s, have come true by now. What have they achieved as a result of this 20-year period? The total concentration of political power, just as before, but with huge personal fortunes they could not even have imagined and a completely different lifestyle (in Moscow’s exclusive Rublyovka neighborhood, Courchevel, or Sardinia).

Most importantly, the rulers no longer have any social and historical responsibility. Now they do not need to howl in unison: “The purpose of our life is ordinary people’s happiness.” They were sick of that hypocrisy. Now they repeat matter-of-factly that the purpose of their lives is “the continuation of market reforms” and “getting Russia off its knees,” though none of them believes that or even knows what it means. The regime has promised the people to take “unpopular but necessary measures” for 20 (!) consecutive years of reform as it was implementing measures very popular among a handful of people and aimed at their personal enrichment.

The history of authoritarian regimes succeeding one another in Russia reveals a pattern – they do not die from external blows of fate or attacks by their opponents. They tend to die suddenly of a strange sort of internal disease – the irresistible existential disgust for themselves, their own exhaustion and what Sartre described as the nausea (la nausée) of existence.

Today we are witnessing the Putin regime, which paved the political space with asphalt, waste away from the same chronic disease. The simulacrum of a big ideological style, it could hardly avoid such a fate. In its short biography of one decade it went through all the classic stages of Soviet history only to become a vulgar parody of each of them.

Soviet communism took 40 years to die. Simulacra collapse much faster because they lack any organic matter.

One distinction of Nausea 2011 is that the leadership suffering from it has no project for the future. It can only lose. Yes, of course, many would like to put an end to the excesses of the national leader and his Tonton Macoutes destructive to the object of their power and the source of their wealth.

But the will of our glamorous haves is paralyzed not so much by fear of the alpha male still roaring menacingly, but by the prospect of being left alone without this male to face the alien and silent community of have-nots.

Thus conscience does make cowards of them all …

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.

The elite’s unresolved nausea and the burnt-out political space beyond it stop Russia’s historical time, turning it into a sticky and dreary eternity.

Putin’s eternity is the black hole of Russian history, Svidrigailov’s rustic smoky sauna with swollen spiders creeping at the corners, veterans of the KGB’s Dresden field station, and the members of the Ozero dacha cooperative.

The ruling corporation has no people or ideas, or even desires. For them Francis Fukuyama’s end of history came a long time ago. Time stands still in the viscous eternity and our original Eurasian pride – the vertically structured government – is about to collapse to form yet another black hole of Russian history for the third time in less than a century.

The solemn inauguration of Putin as the Father of the Nation on 8 May 2012 for the third and, in fact, life term will be a control shot to Russia’s head. In the coming decade, events will evolve rapidly along a trajectory predetermined by the lack of freedom and steady destruction of the nation’s gene pool for centuries.

The control shot will trigger the final wave of emigration of professionals and talented young people (5 to 7 million of them) from Russia.

After their departure, science, education, and health care will finally crumble. The continuing plunder by Putin’s gang of KGB agents/raw materials traders and the Yeltsin-era oligarchs who have sworn fealty to them will lead in 2013 or 2014 to the collapse of the financial system, a sharp depreciation of the ruble, pension fund bankruptcy, and mass unemployment.

North Caucasian republics, starting with Chechnya, will finally break away from ailing Russia after they stop receiving tribute. The government will not dare to use force to retain them for fear of terrorist attacks by Islamists.

Spontaneous protests by disadvantaged people will begin in various provinces of the country. The regime will use force, like Syria’s dictator, in an attempt to quell riots.

In the end, Putin will find himself in a hopeless situation and will be overthrown in 2015 in a Romania-1989-style military coup.

After taking power, the military will try to rely on nationalist sentiment, which will lead to a rise of separatism in the remaining ethnic regions and overt political, economic, and possibly military pressure from China on Russia’s Far East and Siberia.

In 2016 and 2017, the Chinese will establish two puppet Russian-Chinese states, the Far Eastern Republic and the Republic of Siberia.

In 2018, the Baltic region, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and Karelia will break away from Russia. In 2019, central Russian regions will ask for accession to Ukraine, which will have concluded an agreement on associated membership in the EU by that time.

Lengthy negotiations, including on the fate of the residual nuclear capabilities of the once-great power, the status of the Russian language, and the interpretation of World War II history, will end in the resurrection in 2021 of the bilingual Slavic state of Kievan Rus destroyed by the Mongols nearly a thousand years ago.

Retirement

Alexei Kudrin & Co (Deputy Finance Minister Shatalov, specifically) are still pushing for a gradual increase in the retirement age.  Shatalov was on Ekho Moskvy on Tuesday trying to promote this among the population that listens to EM (any ideas on their demographic?).  Apparently, Alexei Leonidovich is getting frustrated with the lack of movement on this issue.  Of course, in an election cycle, the subject is the 3^rd rail, as we like to say in the US, and why would a person with a populist agenda (Putin, in case you were wondering) want to touch it?

VTsIOM Poll

VTsIOM conucted a poll recently on the members of the Government, and I was kind of surprised by the results.

First of all, Sergei Shoigu has the highest approval rating of anyone in the government (people were not asked about Putin).  I have mixed feelings about Shoigu.  He has held the post of Emergency Situations Minister since Boris Yeltsin came to power.  On the one hand, I feel like he must be doing something right, and his approval rating has always been pretty high.  But then yesterday’s incident makes me pause to think.  His solution to the Bulgaria tragedy is to put black boxes in all boats.  What?  That’s his response?  Quite frankly, the man has never been good in an “emergency” (Beslan, Dubrovka, etc.), and I’m still not sure where he is getting such high numbers.  Unless people are just saying that they like him because they know who he is (he has been in the Government since 1991, after all).  That’s the only thing I can come up with anyway.  Also, presumably, the poll was conducted before the Bulgaria tragedy.

Here are some more numbers:

• Sergei Lavrov — 47% approval rating.  Okay, I’ll buy that.  He’s one of the most public figures of the Government since he is the head diplomat.
• Sergei Ivanov — 32% approve of the job he’s doing (or have heard of him, anyway).

And the lows are:

• Andrei Fursenko — 50% disapprove of the job he is doing.  Hardly suprising since he’s the face of education “reform”, and most teachers are upset about it.
• Tatiana Golikova — 41% disapprove of the job she is doing.  What is she doing, anyway?  I don’t even know.
• Alexei Kudrin — 34% disapprove of the job he is doing.  Well, he’s not exactly populist, is he?  And I doubt he’s really out to win any popularity contests.  But then none of these people are, are they?  Their job doesn’t depend on what the general populace think of them.  It only depends on what Putin and Medvedev think of them, and their work.

Some other numbers:

• 75% of people don’t know who Igor Sechin is;
• 72% don’t know who Vyacheslav Volodin is; and
• 71% have never heard of Igor Shuvalov.

I was a little shocked when I saw those numbers, but I bet if you asked Americans the same questions about their Government, they would say the same thing.

My 2012 Election Predictions

There is probably not a good way to say this beyond the absolute, blunt truth: Putin is bored.  He hates being PM, and I am not sure that anyone could, or should, blame him for it.  Putin has essentially been Mr Russia for the last 3 years and some odd months.  Even Miss America is only Miss America for one year, and there is a reason for it.  That reason is, of course, that she’d go stark, staring mad if she had to do it for longer.

Kudrin for PM?

This WSJ article showed up in my Google Reader this morning (several days late), and since I am following the so-called elections pretty closely, I thought it would be an appropriate lead in to some things I’ve been thinking about.

Here is what the article claims:

Several members of Moscow’s elite business and economic circles have suggested that Mr. Putin may run for president and, when he’s inaugurated, select longtime Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin as the country’s next prime minister.

I can see why this alternative would be attractive to people, particularly investors (as the article says later).  I personally am a huge fan of Alexei Leonidovich.

But here is why this is wrong: first of all, the qualities that make Kudrin a good excellent MinFin are not necessarily the qualities that are needed for PM: “…he is seen as a fiscally conservative, clearheaded technocrat with an almost single-minded focused on reining in budget spending.”

If Kudrin were PM under Medvedev, it would be more believable (you need someone conservative to kind of hold Medvedev back, I think).  But as a balance to Putin, which is this author’s premise, Kudrin would not be a good choice.

Also, lest we forget, Igor Sechin is the counter-balance to Kudrin, and putting Kudrin over Sechin would not really mesh with the way VVP “leads”.

So that’s where I am going with this.

P.S. I really am going to write the piece about the Presidency, I swear!

Yuri Chaika

Yuri Chaika‘s term as Prosecutor General is up in 18 days. In the next three weeks, the decision must be reached as to whether or not Chaika will remain at his post for another 5 year term.

The Russian Constitution of 1993 states in Articles 102h and 129 that the Prosecutor General is appointed by the President for a 5 year term subject to the approval of the upper house of Parliament, the Federation Council.

Usually this would not be an issue. Chaika would go before the Federation Council, possibly answer a few easy questions, and the Federation Council would vote to approve him for another term.

Tandem 2012?

I found two articles this past week on the Tandem, and its continued viability.  The first was by Andrei Kolesnikov of Novaya Gazeta, published by Open Democracy.  In his article, Kolesnikov cites examples of tension within the Tandem ranging from Okhta Centre in Saint Petersburg (a win for Medvedev, per Kolesnikov) to Khimki (a win for Putin), and, of course, the sacking of Yuri Luzhkov (a win for Medvedev).