Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, who transformed post-Soviet Russia by imposing Kremlin control over most aspects of public life, moved to return to the presidency, and could remain until 2024, giving him a rule comparable in length with that of Brezhnev or Stalin. President Dmitri A. Medvedev announced at a party convention in Moscow that he would step aside for Putin, who served as president from 2000 to 2008, but was limited by the Constitution to two consecutive terms. Medvedev is to take his place as prime minister after presidential elections in March that Putin is assured of winning.Rico says the Times article notes that "reporting was contributed by Seth Mydans from Moscow"; Seth is the son of Carl Mydans, who built the house that Rico grew up in in Calfornia.
At the announcement, wave upon wave of applause washed over the hall, where eleven thousand members of Putin’s party, United Russia, had gathered. Medvedev’s face was projected on a giant screen above the stage, and he gave a flickering smile as the crowd roared, rose to its feet, and swung its attention away from him toward Putin, who was sitting in the audience.
The move brings an end to years of uncertainty, inside and outside Russia, about whether Putin intended to loosen his grip on power. Neither leader offered any reason for the decision, but Putin said the deal had been made years ago. If that is true, Medvedev’s presidency, and the tension that accompanied its end, now looks like an orchestrated political drama that drew in much of the world. “I want to say directly: an agreement over what to do in the future was reached between us several years ago,” Putin said.
Medvedev also said there had been no conflict, though his account was less definitive: “What we are recommending to the convention, it is a deeply thought-out decision. Moreover, we really discussed this possible turn of events at the time when we formed our comradely union.”
The change casts uncertainty on the future of the so-called reset in relations between the United States and Russia, which benefited from an easy rapport between Medvedev and President Obama. But a senior Obama administration official played down such concerns, saying that American officials “have very deliberately sought to avoid playing favorites. Everyone knows that Putin runs Russia,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Remembering this obvious fact means that Putin has supported the reset with the US.”
As the news filtered into the street, most Russians expressed little surprise. Putin’s rise to power accompanied an oil-fueled rise in income, and most Russians feel no nostalgia for the chaotic political pluralism of the 1990s. Opposition to Putin’s government is growing, however, in places like Moscow, whose residents get information from the internet and are less dependent on government social payments.
“I don’t know what feelings I have about it because on one hand, it seems like we don’t have any alternative, we have to accept that Putin will be president,” said Yulia Belova, an advertising manager. Ivan V. Chaikin, 71, was similarly philosophical, saying his own hopes for democratic reform had withered a decade ago: “They decided between themselves who will hold which job. It’s like a swap in chess: my bishop for your rook.”
There is little evidence that the change will portend dramatic policy shifts. Medvedev has called for political and judicial reforms that would decentralize power away from the Kremlin, and his rhetoric won him the backing of many in the West and in progressive circles. But he was widely viewed as a weak executive whose initiatives were subject to veto by Putin.
Putin, meanwhile, has signaled in recent months that he may restyle himself as an economic reformer, wrapping himself in the mantle of the tsarist Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin. In his speech, he proposed raising some taxes on the rich and addressed problems that had been considered Medvedev’s territory. “We must speak openly about the dependence of our economy on raw materials, about the dangerous level of social inequality, violence, and corruption, about the feeling of injustice and vulnerability that people feel when they are dealing with government bodies, courts, and law enforcement,” Putin said. “All this, unfortunately, continues,” he said. “We can and must overcome these problems.”
Putin’s embrace of reform may prove unconvincing to international investors, who have expressed wariness over conditions for business in Russia. A common complaint is that Putin’s rule hollowed out the country’s institutions, so that even major deals hinge on personal relationships with the country’s leaders.
Putin is expected to face painful and unpopular decisions over the coming years as oil production levels off and the rise in Russians’ standard of living slows. In 2014, when imports of consumer goods is projected to exceed oil production, the government will find itself increasingly dependent on foreign investment.
The governing United Russia Party has been gradually losing popularity, dropping nine points since January, according to the Public Opinion Foundation. And back-to-back elections— for Parliament in December and president in March— neither of which offers an alternative to the current government, will strain the state’s coffers and voters’ patience.
But those concerns did not dampen the holiday atmosphere at Saturday’s convention, or the satisfaction of Putin’s fans. “When else in Russian history has the highest power in the state been handed over so peacefully, so worthily, so honestly, and in such a friendly way?” said Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, a top official in the Russian Orthodox Church, in comments carried by the Interfax news service. This achievement, he said, “can be envied not only by our forbears and people who lived in the Soviet time, but citizens of most of the world’s countries, including those who try to teach us.”
Putin is, by far, the country’s most popular politician, and he is likely to face only token competition in the March election, given the complete marginalization of any opposition parties. One of Medvedev’s first acts as president was to extend the term to six years, meaning that Putin could serve for up to twelve years. If that carries through, he will have been Russia’s pre-eminent leader for more than twenty-four years, putting him in the same category as two of the Soviet Union’s definitive leaders: Leonid Brezhnev, in power for eighteen years at the height of the Cold War; and Josef Stalin, who kept a grip on power for roughly thirty years.
Over recent months, Putin, who turns 59 in October, has left little question that he intended to remain the dominant partner in Russia’s “ruling tandem,” making televised appearances on a Harley-Davidson, deep-sea-diving, and engaging in soulful dialogue with ordinary people. After Medvedev delivered a major speech in Yaroslavl this month, the analyst Lilia Shevtsova, of the Moscow Carnegie Center, titled her blog post on the subject The Last Act of the Play. “How difficult it has become for Medvedev to fill the time,” she wrote. “It was not long ago that he practically reveled in his function. He clearly believed in its seriousness. But now the moment has come when it became clear: he has to get his things together.”
Medvedev had developed a circle of supporters during his presidency, and there was palpable disappointment from those people. One of Medvedev’s closest aides, Arkady V. Dvorkovich, vented via Twitter during the United Russia event, remarking, first, “there is no reason for celebration,” and then “now it is time to switch to the sports channel.” The influential political consultant Gleb O. Pavlovsky, whose longstanding contract with the Kremlin was severed this spring, gave one of the sharpest comments: “The fact that the president, as a politician, betrayed those who believed in him, that is political self-annihilation, and he has the right to do it,” Pavlovsky told the radio station Ekho Moskvy. He called the move “a blow to the prestige of the institution of the presidency in Russia.”
Various political experts questioned Putin’s assertion that the decision was long since set in stone. The economist Mikhail G. Delyagin, a former government aide, said Medvedev had “exhibited a degree of independence,” and, if elected to a second term, could have tried “to become a real president and not a technical one. I know that Putin and Medvedev had to clarify their agreement several times and that at times these conversations were difficult,” said Delyagin, director of the Institute of Globalization Issues. “There were moments where there was absolutely a sense that Medvedev spat on this agreement and tried to play his own game. But in the end he turned out to be weak.”
But if Putin has proposed raising taxes on the rich, he should get along fine with President Obama...
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