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Russia: the Kremlin tandem at work

Dmitry Medvedev, sworn in President on May 7, will preside over a new configuration of power in the Kremlin. A day after he assumed office, the Russian Parliament overwhelmingly endorsed his proposal to appoint the outgoing President, Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister. For the first time in Russia’s post-Soviet history, the country will have two centres of supreme authority, instead of one — the President and the Prime Minister. The state emblem, a double-headed eagle, will acquire a new symbolism, that of dual power.

Under the Russian Constitution, the President is vested with sweeping powers. It was adopted in 1993 in the wake of a bitter conflict between President Boris Yeltsin and Parliament, which escalated into an armed confrontation, and was designed to prevent any repetition of the crippling standoff between different branches of the government.

The Prime Minister has since been a technical, rather than political, figure. However Prime Minister Putin, with his huge popularity, strong power base and experience, will exert enormous influence on politics. He has further firmed up his position by becoming chairman of the Kremlin’s dominant political party, United Russia, which gives him control over Parliament and strong leverage over regional leaders.

Mr. Putin’s critics denounced his decision to step in as Prime Minister as an attempt to perpetuate himself in power. The former President had indeed insisted that he would not leave politics but apparently had not planned to shift to the Premier’s position. Last October, he publicly ruled out the option. But as he prepared to bow out, the power struggle between Kremlin clans intensified and spilled into the open. Several senior government and security officials were arrested, as “siloviki,” belonging to rival security services, jostled for positions ahead of the change of guard. The “siloviki” had wanted Mr. Putin to circumvent the Constitution and run for a third term or to choose a weaker successor. They could have deliberately paraded their feud to put pressure on Mr. Putin to stay on, even if as Prime Minister.

Apart from a concern for maintaining stability during the transition, Mr. Putin appears to have been motivated by a desire to stand by Mr. Medvedev as he firms up his grip on power. Mr. Putin himself spent much of his first four-year term mastering the intricacies of state craftsmanship after the surprise resignation of Yeltsin.

Mr. Putin’s decision to take over premiership came as Russia’s inflation threatened to surge to double digits on global food prices growth and the government mulled over steep hikes in utility bills.

Some western analysts dismissed Mr. Medvedev as a “puppet” and “place holder” for the “power-hungry” Putin as he manoeuvres to stage a comeback in the 2012 elections or even earlier. Mr. Putin is indeed likely to dominate for some time – a year or two. But as Mr. Medvedev settles down and defines his own agenda, he will gradually take over the reins of power. It is impossible to reduce the Russian President to a British Queen without changing the Constitution. The President nominates the Prime Minister and key Ministers, manages the security and law enforcement agencies, acts as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and appoints all top-level commanders in the armed forces. He is empowered to dismiss the Prime Minister and dissolve Parliament. The Defence, Foreign, Interior and Justice Ministries report directly to the President, as do the Foreign Intelligence Service and the Federal Security Service.

Moreover, Mr. Medvedev is no weakling. Years in the Kremlin as the influential head of Mr. Putin’s staff and concurrently Chairman of the Board of the gas giant, Gazprom, have steeled his character and sharpened his skills. He displayed a combination of ruthlessness and diplomacy in shaping Gazprom’s strategy of aggressive expansion in Europe and Central Asia and wresting control of the domestic gasfield from western companies. He takes credit for turning Gazprom into the world’s third largest company by market value.

Another popular theory is that the Russian “diarchy” will eventually lead to schisms in the bureaucracy, backroom intrigue, vicious infighting and political instability. Russia’s history indeed offers hardly any example of successful power-sharing at the very top. There are signs that the bureaucracy is already trying to drive a wedge between the President and the Prime Minister. It is one thing for Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev to agree to work as a team and how their offices will interact is quite another. For all that, the two leaders have a good chance to preserve their tandem.

Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev have closely worked together for the past 17 years. Their relationship is one of brothers or even father and son (Mr. Putin is 13 years older). As head of the Kremlin administration, Mr. Medvedev was effectively the second most powerful figure in the Russian hierarchy. More recently, as First Deputy Prime Minister, he supervised key national projects in agriculture, health, education, housing and demography. Their association will continue with a formal reversal of roles: as President, Mr. Medvedev will be mainly responsible for foreign and security policies, while Mr. Putin will concentrate on the economy. Their new jobs are not really new for either of them. Mr. Medvedev has been deeply involved in foreign and security policy as Mr. Putin’s right-hand man in the Kremlin, while Mr. Putin as President effectively controlled the government, chairing weekly Cabinet sessions, meeting with the Prime Minister and other members of the government, and giving them instructions on a daily basis.

The bedrock of their alliance is a shared perception of the tasks and problems facing Russia. While Mr. Putin’s presidency was a period of rehabilitation, Mr. Medvedev will preside over all-round modernisation of the country. The long-term programme drawn up by the Putin-Medvedev team calls for making Russia “the best country to live in” by 2020 through diversification, by moving away from over reliance on oil and gas, by de-monopolising and scaling down state involvement in big industries, switching to a science-based economy, reversing the population decline and dramatically raising people’s well-being.

The biggest obstacle to these plans is an overblown and corrupt bureaucracy, which has stymied modernisation. Back in 2005, Mr. Putin said he had “no plans to hand over control of the country to an inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy.” Yet, the bureaucracy has never had it so good, after eight years of Mr. Putin’s otherwise successful efforts to restore the centre’s control over the country and rebuild the state machine.

Both Mr. Medvedev and Mr. Putin appreciate the magnitude of the problem. Mr. Medvedev described the level of corruption as “astronomical” and called for a national programme to assert the supremacy of law, while Mr. Putin described corruption as “one of the most burning issues.” Both favour decentralisation of authority, removal of excessive government controls and adoption of anti-graft legislation as ways of dealing with the problem.

Their power-sharing arrangement may well be the first step towards a credible separation of powers at all levels of government. The President and the Prime Minister will share jurisdiction over regional leaders, the Central Electoral Commission, the Central Bank, and the Prosecutor-General’s Office. The President will submit nominations for these institutions, and the legislatures controlled by the Prime Minister will endorse the appointments.

Mr. Medvedev’s accession to power has generated hopes of democratic, political reforms. At 42, he is Russia’s youngest leader yet; he belongs to a new generation of leaders whose careers began in post-Communist Russia. He has tried his hand at business, providing legal advice to a pulp mill, he loves rock music and starts his day by surfing the web. As far as Mr. Medvedev is concerned, there is no doubt that “freedom is better than non-freedom.” “Our policy should be guided by this principle,” he said during his election campaign. “This refers to freedom in all its manifestations — personal freedom, economic freedom, and, lastly, the freedom of self-expression.”

There is a growing realisation in the Kremlin that absence of political competition is a major hurdle. Russia’s political system has been described as a “one-and-a-half-party system” (the dominant United Russia plus a weak Communist Party). A law professor by training, Mr. Medvedev champions strong political parties, an influential Parliament, an independent judiciary and free media.

“Our task is to create a system that would allow civic structures to participate in shaping state policy and evaluating its efficiency,” he told members of the Public Chamber, a Kremlin advisory body.

The Medvedev-Putin team is sure to continue the assertive and pragmatic foreign policy of the past eight years that has put Russia back on the world stage and facilitated its economic resurgence.

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