Putin's shadow looms still larger over Medvedev presidency


Given that the Guardian has been warning everyone for some time that Vladimir Putin does not intend to give up politics and that there will be two centres of power when the next President of the Russian Federation is elected, the paper’s surprise at Putin’s indication he will accept the position of Prime Minister under Medvedev is slightly excessive. It confirms my suspicion that despite repeated stern warnings in the western media, that there remains an incredulity that Putin really intends to take the path which he appears to be taking. We may have predicted it, but we didn’t really believe he would have the audacity to actually go through with it, if you will.

Putin does not intend merely to install his chosen lieutenant as president and then retire gracefully from politics to let his successor get on with things. He genuinely does intend to remain active and potentially undermine the authority of Dmitry Medvedev. He claims that no constitutional alterations will take place in order to redistribute power in favour of the Prime Minister. If such an undertaking is genuine it suggests that Putin will exercise a supervisory role over his charge. Such an arrangement requires Medvedev to remain subservient to Putin’s programme. If he wavers from that position a potentially damaging power struggle could well ensue.

Medvedev should comfortably win the presidential election in March. Inevitably though his mandate will be viewed as derived from Putin’s sponsorship and in many respects this view will indeed be correct. With Putin retaining a high profile position as the President’s Premier, Medvedev’s position will undoubtedly be undermined. For the time being this predicates that Russia’s politics will focus increasingly on personalities rather than on the institutions of government of which they are a part.

Comments

Hernandez said…
You have to admire Putins balls. I mean, he just doesn't give a shit about what the West thinks of him. Deep down he knows they can't really do anything about it.
20 December 2007 at 22:40
Dinamo said…
But what is Putin doing to restore the glory of the USSR? He seems content to stand aside whilst foolish neighbours flirt openly with NATO membership in Georgia and the minor countries near the Baltic Sea.
5 January 2008 at 17:12
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Football fever in Russia

Russia Blog is getting excited about Euro 2008. Indeed it is drawing parallels between Guus Hiddink and Peter the Great in terms of successful Russo-Dutch exchanges of expertise. Meanwhile, in Moscow, fans have been taking to the streets in order to celebrate the national team’s achievements.
Read more

Stormont might not collapse but paramilitaries continue to disfigure Northern Ireland

Image
The devolved institutions in Northern Ireland are supposedly ‘teetering on the brink’ of collapse yet again.  After repeated failures to agree a balanced budget or implement welfare reform created months of uncertainty, the Executive’s future is now in doubt because the PSNI believes members of the IRA were involved in murdering a republican hit man.  Despite its apparent seriousness, this particular predicament is unlikely to bring the shaky edifice at Stormont crashing down. The IRA was supposed to have disbanded its military ‘structures’ and decommissioned its entire arsenal of weapons back in 2005.  It was on the basis of this understanding that power-sharing resumed in 2007 and the DUP entered government with Sinn Féin.  From the outset it was a fairly flimsy pretext.   Less than a year after John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian general, oversaw decommissioning, the Independent Monitoring Commission reported that the IRA retaine...
Read more

Walker loada rubbish

Former BBC employee Brian Walker has overrun Slugger O’Toole lately with countless poorly structured, poorly written posts. It is possible quickly to recognize and avoid these by subjecting each Slugger piece to a cursory inspection and identifying those which feature characteristic lack of paragraphing and a tenuous grasp on the technicalities of linking source articles. Although I generally evade Walker’s posts by this method, occasionally (and unfortunately) I have persevered and found that their content is as unrewarding as the style in which they are written. Today, for instance, I inflicted upon myself Brian’s thoughts on a mooted Fianna Fail / SDLP merger . In actual fact, he is right to welcome news that the Southern Irish party has dropped this proposal from its agenda; however, the logic by which he arrives at this conclusion is parochial nonsense. To summarise, Walker believes that pursuing realignment with larger parties, whether they are from the rest of the UK or fro...
Read more