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#29 - JRL 2006-172 - JRL Home
From: Peter Reddaway (PBReddaway@cs.com)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006
Subject: Paper "Will Putin Call Early Elections"

Will Putin Opt for Early Elections to the Duma and/or the presidency?[1]
Peter Reddaway, July 27, 2006
Emeritus Professor of Political Science & International Affairs,
George Washington University

Summary of the paper’s conclusions:

In the immediate future, Putin will probably not take a decision either for or against pre-term elections for the Duma and/or the presidency ­ a topic he has not yet directly addressed. However, if the current post-G-8 summit period should see significant political shifts in Russia, as seems likely, he might make such a decision soon - either publicly or in private. But he also might decide later.

If Putin does call early elections at some point, his main goals would probably be:

1. to act before he becomes a lame duck in the last part of his presidency and loses some of his clout;

2. to achieve surprise, and thus be able either to push through more easily his preferred scenario for getting his chosen successor elected ­ against possible opposition from colleagues urging a third term out of fear that his departure would threaten their futures[2]; and/or to obtain through early Duma elections a majority for Unified Russia that might not be attainable later.

As regards both sorts of election, in the event that any negative political or economic trends should worsen and start to provoke popular discontent, his goal would be to minimize their electoral impact by holding elections quickly, before the discontent could gain momentum and become politically dangerous.

In any case, whether or not any pre-term elections are actually called, urgently conducted legislative, administrative and political preparations for the contingency of early Duma elections are now virtually complete. Thus, if such elections should become desirable to Putin, he is already in a position to set them in motion.

In this connection, two members of the Central Elections Commission (CEC) have recently suggested that the Kremlin is, in fact, close to opting for pre-term Duma elections. Also, four Duma deputies said they took early election scenarios seriously, one of them positing new elections in March[3]. Such views must be treated cautiously, but certainly cannot be dismissed. Although the CEC head said later there were no grounds for expecting early elections (see p. 14), the Kremlin could have been manipulating him in order to disguise its real intentions.

Adding to the case for taking early election scenarios seriously, one recent writer concluded: “In the opinion of some analysts, an early dissolution of the Duma should be expected as soon as this Fall”[4], and another claimed that Putin will soon become the leader of Unified Russia (UR), and early elections for both the Duma and the presidency “will be held in March 2007”[5].

Also, at an apparently orchestrated meeting between Putin and UR’s Duma deputies on July 2, a senior legislator directly urged Putin to become UR’s leader.[6] If this should happen soon, the possibility of early Duma elections would increase, and the just noted comment by CEC head Veshnyakov would lose some of its force.

However, on July 24 the colleague whom Putin has appeared to favor as his successor, Dmitri Medvedev, said in an interview that “the president” should not belong to a party, thus implying he did not support the idea of Putin joining UR.[7] Unless he was playing some complicated game, he would scarcely have said something that conflicted with Putin’s intentions as Medvedev currently believed them to be.

Separately, some analysts have posited Putin’s early resignation from the presidency, but with Duma elections still being held on schedule. Among other things, they have noted his past statements about never having wanted the job of president, and disliking the severe strains that it imposes on him. Observers have also claimed that he is impatient to move to a less pressured job, e.g., at the top of the energy sector or an international organization.

In addition, if circumstances should require, Putin could, from a technical viewpoint, combine early Duma elections with his own resignation. Among other things, simultaneous elections would facilitate the PR aspect of his resignation.

Finally, it is perfectly possible that both elections will be held on schedule. This would satisfy Putin’s instinctive preference for orderliness. We may note, though, that this preference is sometimes trumped by his equally powerful instinct to do whatever will safeguard his most basic interests, namely his personal security and his financial prosperity.

Introduction

This paper reviews the evidence available on what is clearly one of various political contingencies for which Putin and his associates have been making careful preparations, namely a need for early elections to the Duma and/or the presidency.[8] Other possible courses of action include 1. letting the regular procedures run their course, and 2. opting for one of the well planned scenarios that would enable a severely constrained Putin, probably reluctantly, to serve a third term.[9]

As indicated above, my broad conclusion is that Putin has not as yet decided on any early elections, and it may be that he strongly hopes that he will not have to do so at any stage. He may be keen to leave office in regular fashion in 2008, hoping in this way to restore some of his democratic credentials in the eyes of the West. However, in certain circumstances ­ as described in this paper ­ he might feel obliged to organize early elections. A quick, convenient, and constitutional mechanism for doing this is available to him, part of which has recently been spelled out by Duma deputy Viktor Ilyukhin.[10]

The paper’s structure is chronological. In addition to evidence relating directly to the possible mechanics and timing of pre-term elections, I have included some discussion of the substance of the issues.

Criticism and other forms of feedback from readers are desired and welcome.

Yeltsin’s early resignation in 1999

As background, a brief review of Yeltsin’s surprise resignation from the presidency on December 31, 1999, six months ahead of schedule, should be helpful. His early departure was foreshadowed by a number of reports and interviews in the Russian media, beginning in early August, i.e., five months before he resigned. Aleksandr Shokhin (now president of RUIE) was notable as the most insistent purveyor of information on the topic. His motivation for doing this is still not clear.[11]

However, little public attention was paid to his statements in Russia, and the subject appears not to have been discussed in Western media at all.[12] Thus Yeltsin’s resignation and Putin’s simultaneous accession as Acting President achieved almost complete surprise.

The surprise was at once exploited by Yeltsin and his associates. On the day he resigned, December 31, they had Putin grant Yeltsin immunity from prosecution. Then they further exploited the surprise by quickly launching their campaign to get Putin elected as president in March 2000. With state and private resources powering the campaign, he won 53% of the vote in the first round. By contrast, opposition candidates, notably the communist Gennady Ziuganov, were thrown off balance and had little time to prepare. In addition, as Putin himself admitted, state-controlled television and other governmental instruments discriminated heavily against Ziuganov throughout the campaign. The effect of all these factors was a major setback for the communist: he took only 29% of the vote.

The possibility of early elections in the Putin period

1. The Communist Party (KPRF) prepares in 2005 for early Duma elections in 2006

In June 2005 the KPRF decided at a party plenum that there were enough signs of planning by the Kremlin and the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) to hold pre-term Duma elections, that it would start at once to prepare its campaign.

According to deputy leader Ivan Mel’nikov, the party had information that the vote would be held in 2006, and the information appeared ­ given recent moves by the CEC and the Kremlin that he detailed ­ to be plausible. Logic suggested that the Kremlin “needs pre-term elections in order to separate (more widely - PR) the parliamentary and presidential elections. Otherwise there would be only two months in which to prepare for the latter, and this would be extremely risky in conditions of uncertainty in 2008.”[13]

We should note here that while early elections have still not been scheduled, in June-July 2006 some communist Duma deputies and two CEC members drew attention to further urgent election preparations by the CEC, and spoke out about the renewed possibility of a pre-term vote. On this episode see p. 1 above and section 5 on pp. 8-9 below.

We should also note that the Kremlin sometimes spreads false rumors about moves that it is supposedly planning to make. In these cases its goal is to create a climate of political uncertainty that it can exploit to its advantage. Actions of this sort may have contributed to the communists’ decision of June 2005, and also to the suspicions voiced a year later.

2. Aleksandr Budberg

The first noteworthy article by a professional commentator on the possibility of Putin resigning early appears to be Aleksandr Budberg’s of November 18, 2005, “Will Putin Depart Early? Presidential Contradictions”[14]. This was written as a commentary on Putin’s November 14 promotion of Sergei Ivanov to be a deputy prime minister, and of Dmitri Medvedev to be 1. the first deputy prime minister, and also 2. - by implication - Putin’s undeclared candidate for the succession.[15]

The article was significant for several reasons. First, Budberg is married to Natalya Timakova[16], the number two official in Putin’s press and PR department. She was also one of the three interviewers who compiled his first official autobiography, Ot pervogo litsa, published in 2000. Although Budberg claims he is independent, since the 1990s he has shown a tendency to act as a channel for the views of, first, Viktor Chernomyrdin, then Anatoly Chubais, and now Medvedev. Thus it seems rather unlikely that he would write his article last November, unless he had reason to know that the resignation scenario was a real and serious one.

This is particularly so because, second, Budberg laid out a scenario that was, he believed, both logical and likely. After arguing persuasively that Putin is a close and longstanding friend of Medvedev, that his promotion was a serious indication of Putin’s preferred choice as his successor, that major financial and PR resources had been mobilized to support Medvedev’s undeclared candidacy, and that all these factors guaranteed that Putin’s promotion of him was serious, not frivolous, Budberg summed up his argument like this:

“To promote him (Medvedev) two and a half years before the elections is to do so (excessively) early[17]. Yet there is no reason to believe that Medvedev is a smokescreen. This contradiction can be resolved only by the hypothesis that the presidential elections will be held ahead of schedule.”

In my view, the logic of this argument remains as strong now as it was last November. However, the logic would break down if Putin were to decide at some point that Medvedev’s performance in his new jobs was so weak that 1. key sections of the elite were already sabotaging his efforts to a dangerous extent, and would do so even more once he was in office, and 2. getting the voters to elect him was becoming a doubtful proposition even for the highly popular Putin. If Putin were to make such a decision, he would then have to either pick a different succession candidate[18] (this would not exclude the possibility of early elections), or agree reluctantly to run for a third term.

The logic would also break down, if members of Putin’s inner circle were to exert such strong pressure on him ­ using means that might range from, at one end of the spectrum, simply convincing him that none of his possible successors would be able to maintain the all-important status quo, to, at the other end, outright blackmail. Their goal would be to force him to run for a third term.

Budberg ended his article (which held that the Duma elections would take place on schedule) with an obligatory caution that it represented only the personal opinion of a fallible observer. He also said of Putin’s post-presidency aspirations and the PR aspects of an early resignation: “The question arises of how the super-popular Putin will explain his early departure to the public. In all probability VVP has a concrete plan (assuming of course that the theory presented here is correct). Maybe he will be asked to head a prestigious international organization or a newly created global structure. Various possibilities exist. In any case, the answer will become clear only at the very last minute.”

Finally, we should note that Budberg has not returned since November to the theme of a possible early presidential election. This may suggest that he no longer sees such an election as being a real possibility.

3. Aleksandr Khramchikhin

Two weeks later, on December 1, 2005, the perceptive though sometimes overly self-confident commentator Aleksandr Khramchikhin, whose views are anti-communist, anti-Putin, and rather nationalist, wrote an article in similar vein. In particular, he analyzed the reactions to Putin’s promotion of Medvedev and Ivanov that were coming from 1. the siloviki of Igor Sechin’s camp and 2. the leaders of the dominant Kremlin-backed political party, Unified Russia.[19]

Khramchikhin saw the Sechin camp as being both alarmed that early presidential elections had, as the author asserted, been scheduled for somewhere in the range of November 2006 to May 2007, and determined to prevent such elections from happening. For if they did, the Sechinites’ future in political, financial, and even juridical terms would be much too vulnerable.

Thus they had mobilized their ally, prime minister Mikhail Fradkov, to quietly but intensively sabotage the work of his two newly promoted subordinates in the government hierarchy. Khramchikhin provided illustrations of this, and also predicted that the Sechin group would be working to block Putin’s reported intention to move to a top position in Gazprom.

As for Unified Russia, Khramchikhin did not predict early Duma elections as such, but did cite recent developments that would be compatible with them.[20] He reported, for example, party leader Boris Gryzlov’s unprecedentedly emphatic statement that a third term for Putin was “out of the question” (which, if true, meant that the Sechinites’ worst nightmare had come to pass).

He also cited Gryzlov’s urgent injunction at the recent party congress that Unified Russia must now move decisively from a position of merely being labeled the party of power to actually wielding power in reality. In the wake of this speech, Khramchikhin noted, the party had started making aggressive demands of the Kremlin. Among these was the demand that the victorious party in the Duma elections should be empowered to propose appropriate candidates for governorships and even for the prime ministership.

In a later article of February 9, 2006, Khramchikhin updated the above points, once again explicitly forecasting pre-term Duma elections[21]. In particular, he reacted to what he saw as widespread naïve acceptance of Putin’s statement at his press conference on January 31 that he would not go into business after leaving office in 2008. No-one claimed, the writer said, that Medvedev had “gone into business” when he became the chairman of Gazprom’s board. Yet that was the position that Putin would probably take. He also noted that Gazprom was expanding dramatically to make the job more suitable for someone of Putin’s standing, diversifying beyond natural gas into the oil, media, and even, probably, nuclear power industries as well.

In Khramchikhin’s opinion, all this was being done “under a high-intensity regime focused on early elections”. That these would include early Duma elections was suggested by the fact that Unified Russia and others were suddenly exerting intense pressure on Russia’s mayors to create immediately - “within three months” - an All-Russian Association of Municipal Bodies (AAMB). This was being done even though, with the municipal reform postponed in many areas until 2009, the timing was not opportune.

Thus, Khramchikhin said, the obvious explanation was that the Duma elections would be moved up, and it was therefore critical that the new AAMB should be up and running in time. It would then be able to mobilize Russia’s mayors for the critical task of getting out the popular vote.[22] He concluded with a rhetorical question to support his argument: “If elections for the Duma and the presidency are to be held on schedule (i.e., in two years’ time ­ PR), then why is there such a rush?”

As regards the presidential elections, he predicted (accurately) that Medvedev’s national projects would come in for fierce criticism. To minimize the effect of this, he suggested that the schedule might be brought forward: Medvedev might be made prime minister in Spring 2006 (which has not in fact happened), and then - on Putin’s resignation ­ acting president in the early Fall.

4. Yevgeniya Al’bats

On March 3, 2006, the well-known political analyst Yevgeniya Al’bats picked up on the February 22 publication of a long, 6,000-word speech to Unified Russia by Vladislav Surkov[23], deputy head of the Presidential Administration and Putin’s chief “political technologist”. The speech was a key part of the evidence for her theme that elections would be held 12 ­ 18 months early, for both the Duma and the presidency.[24]

In addition to finding indications in some new economic legislation, and seeing Putin as focused on moving into the world of business, she was struck by the urgent tone and content of Surkov’s speech. For the first time, Unified Russia was clearly instructed to become Russia’s single dominant political party. Its task, moreover, was to insure that the political and economic status quo would be preserved over at least the next ten to fifteen years.

Surkov also defined in detail the party’s ideology and electoral strategy, and called on it to mobilize quickly and prepare for battle (“if the war starts tomorrow, …”). “Once again”, Al’bats wrote, “the question is: Why such a rush?” Her answer: because early Duma elections have been scheduled that will leave the opposition parties struggling to catch up with a fully prepared Unified Russia.

5. Election preparations by the Central Electoral Commission arouse suspicion. Possible mechanisms for early Duma and presidential elections

On May 10 Putin’s delivery of his annual charge or “poslanie” to the parliament suddenly propelled Russian political life into high gear. Immediately, Unified Russia and the government created their own special bodies to work intensively on carrying out the specific legislative and executive tasks that the president had assigned them. The political temperature rose sharply, especially regarding several closely inter-related issues: the national priority projects, the upcoming election cycle (and signs that it might begin early), and the sharp intra-elite fighting over who Putin’s successor should be: Medvedev, a silovik - or Putin himself.

On June 19 a reporter for Nezavisimaya gazeta, Natalya Kostenko, published a notable article that was briefly discussed in the summary of this paper on p. 1. She argued that:

- at its meeting on June 16 the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) had, in effect, announced the start of its preparations for the next Duma election campaign; - in the past this had been done “exactly six months” before the campaign (which, in turn, starts 45 days before the actual election); - and the commission chairman’s explanation for why, this time, it was being done almost a year ahead of the normal schedule was not convincing (he claimed that the CEC simply wanted to ease the work of the incoming commission that would be elected in Spring 2007 to replace the present one).

The author based her argument partly on her own analysis of current feverish legislative and administrative activity by the Duma and the CEC, designed (a) to facilitate a victory by Unified Russia (UR) by potentially dishonest means, and (b) to have all the practical and technical election arrangements ready a year and a half ahead of the scheduled election day.[25] She also drew on the comments of a commission member with consultative vote, four communist Duma deputies, and an anonymous member of UR. The latter said that his party was already working intensively to decide who should head the party’s regional lists (something that would be typically be done only a few months before the election ­ PR).

Deputy Sergei Reshul’skiy made a different argument. He pointed out that since UR had recently pushed a lot of laws through the Duma that would be unpopular when implemented, pre-term elections were important to UR. In their absence, he said, “people will understand what the Housing Code and the municipal reform really involve, and social problems will deepen, as the second stage of the monetization of benefits starts to bite.” Also, “if the national projects should fail, this might well produce a negative impression on the electorate.”

Regarding the mechanics of calling new elections, another of the deputies, the veteran communist Viktor Ilyukhin, speculated plausibly about how Putin might call them. The price of an important commodity like gasoline would be jacked up, public protests would break out, the prime minister would ask the Duma for a vote of confidence in the government, the Duma would fail to provide this, and Putin would then dissolve the Duma and call a new election.

Here we should note that this procedure - based on paragraph 4 of article 117 of the Constitution - could simultaneously be a springboard for an early resignation by Putin. Prior to initiating the procedure, he could dismiss the government and replace Fradkov with his chosen successor Medvedev. Then, soon after Medvedev had been confirmed, Putin could take the steps outlined in the last paragraph.[26] Then, having triggered new Duma elections, Putin would resign from office himself, thus (a) automatically making Medvedev the acting president as well[27], (b) triggering presidential elections to be held on the same day as the Duma vote, and (c) giving Medvedev a flying start in the campaign.

A variation of one part of this scenario would have Putin dismissing the Duma first, and only then, a day or two later, dismissing Fradkov and appointing Medvedev -- and then resigning himself as president.

Returning to Kostenko’s article, the reasons why her points have been little discussed by officials or the media since she made them on June 19 are not yet clear. It is possible that the topic has been put off limits through the Kremlin’s control of the editorial line of the main media outlets. Alternatively, commentators may not have been persuaded by her evidence or have been too distracted by the dramas surrounding the fall and rise of former Procurator-General Vladimir Ustinov and the G-8 summit.

We should note, though, that Putin appeared to make an indirect response to the article at a meeting with his cabinet the next day. Asking finance minister Aleksei Kudrin about the timing of the various steps required for confirming the budget, and getting the answer that the process usually ended in late November, Putin objected. Pointing out that in November 2007 the Duma election campaign would be underway, he demanded that, to avoid this clash, the budget process be speeded up and brought forward -- starting not in 2007 with the 2008 budget, but now, in 2006, with the 2007 budget.[28]

Although this was an indirect and probably intentional response to Kostenko, it was not a rebuttal. Putin could still decide at some point that new circumstances require him to call early elections. Also, his demand that the budget process be brought forward right away, in 2006, could in fact facilitate the holding of such elections later this year or early in 2007.

6. Latest statements about the possibility of early elections

Since Kostenko’s article appeared, there have, to my knowledge, been only about eight clear and noteworthy statements that touch on the pre-term election issue. First, as mentioned on p. 2, a journalist concluded an article of June 22 in Kostenko style, but without offering much evidence: “In the opinion of some analysts, an early dissolution of the Duma should be expected as soon as this Fall.”

Second, the provocative, sometimes inconsistent, but almost always insightful commentator Stanislav Belkovsky, who says he has ties to certain elements within the siloviki[29], somewhat modified his position on early elections in the direction of skepticism.

Whereas last September he wrote that “the resignation of Vladimir Putin will take place no earlier than September 2007”[30], he argued on June 19: “I do not see the sense in him (Putin) organizing pre-term elections, except in one single situation -- if Vladimir Vladimirovich should bring to fruition one of the plans that he keeps in his pocket, and (therefore) retire ahead of schedule in September 2007. Then, perhaps, he would need to call early parliamentary elections (as well of course as presidential - PR). But today it is far too soon to talk of this; today there’s no-one in the country who can say for sure whether Putin needs this or not.”[31]

Third, a well informed Russian analysis noted at the beginning of July that a certain urgency had recently become noticeable in the authorities’ preparations for the Duma elections. The apparent reason was that “certain forces in the Kremlin were afraid that a deterioration of conditions in consumer markets and a rise in inflation might create a highly unfavorable pre-election situation for ‘the party of power’. These forces therefore began to do additional work on the scenario for conducting, in case of need, early parliamentary and presidential elections.”

“However”, the analysis went on, “this position was evidently shared by far from everyone. Thus it was not by chance that information soon appeared in the press that an unnamed source in a presidential organization had categorically denied the possibility of early elections.”

“Of course,” the analysis continued, “it must be kept in mind that Kremlin officials would not want to disclose their plans for early elections, if such intentions exist. More notable is the fact that the source that allegedly denied such a possibility preferred to remain anonymous. This points to his lack of confidence and to the uncertainty of the situation.”

In conclusion, the analysis held that while Putin had alleviated some elite conflicts in June, “the level of stability in Russian politics has not risen significantly. Furthermore, a serious problem could be caused on the road to the elections by faulty economic decisions on the authorities’ part and a significant rise in budget expenditures. True, if such a contingency should occur, it should be noted that last month the authorities did almost everything to complete their preparations for mobilizing the population for the elections, and, if the situation should worsen, they are fully capable of organizing pre-term elections. However, the chance that an acute need to conduct them will arise is very slight.” [32]

Fourth, as briefly mentioned on p. 2, Putin’s meeting on July 2 with the Duma deputies of United Russia (UR) produced an intriguing development suggesting that Putin might be considering pre-term Duma elections. The meeting lasted for two and a half hours, and although the press had been told the entire proceedings would be open to them, after an hour and a half the discussion suddenly went into closed session.

At the start of the open session, Putin had congratulated UR on its energy and on having “achieved a much higher profile”. But the most significant event of the public session, a session that gave the impression of being carefully scripted by the Kremlin, was a direct request put to Putin by Martin Shakkum, chair of the Duma committee on industrial policy and a wealthy businessman. He said: “We would like to see you become the national leader of a political party. That political party can and must be Unified Russia.” Rapturous applause followed.

While Putin made no response to Shakkum’s appeal even, a participant said, in the closed session, the authors of an informative report claimed the appeal should be seen as an orchestrated one. Further, Putin’s non-response could, they held, be interpreted as “more a yes than a no”. He just “needed time for reflection”.[33]

The fact that the author of the appeal was Shakkum may be significant. He was recently reported to be one of a powerful political and economic triad, the other members being Dmitri Medvedev and the secretive oil trader Gennady Timchenko, who reportedly has close ties to Putin.[34]

Fifth, at the same meeting (presumably during the closed session), Oleg Morozov, the Duma’s first deputy-speaker, raised with Putin and others his plan for controversial new legislation that would oblige the Duma, under all circumstances, to pass whatever legislation the president might call for in his annual “poslanie”. Such a law would guard against the contingency that opposition parties might gain a majority of seats in the Duma and block implementation of the president’s will.

As Morozov reported in an interview two days later, “a group of experts is already working on the text of a draft law”. More significantly, though, he pointed out in some detail how the president could use the law to dissolve the Duma early. Although he did not relate this point to the current situation, he may have intended his remarks to be suggestive.

Certainly Yevgeny Kolyushin, a member of the Central Elections Commission, appeared to read them this way. He commented that the new law could “be used as a pretext for dissolving the Duma and calling pre-term elections. It is in the authorities’ interests to increase the time gap between the parliamentary and the presidential elections.”[35]

In short, then, two politically charged initiatives were launched at the July 2 meeting by senior individuals with close ties to the Kremlin, Shakkum and Morozov. This suggested that something unusual might be afoot.

However, sixth, on July 24 an interview appeared that suggested it might not. The current favorite for the succession, Dmitri Medvedev, made it clear that he did not support the idea of Putin joining UR, even though the Russian population would certainly before long find it appropriate for its president to belong to a party.[36] Medvedev would scarcely have said this, if Putin felt differently -- unless he were playing some complicated game.

Seventh, picking up on most of the developments mentioned in this section, Aleksandr Khramchikhin wrote an article predicting that early elections for both the Duma and the presidency “will be held in March 2007”. He also claimed more emphatically than before that Putin would become the leader of UR, holding that only in this way could UR be sure of getting a solid majority in the Duma. Also, UR would become a more genuine ruling party, able at last, as its frustrated officials had craved, to hand out a significant amount of patronage.

Khramchikhin also reviewed arguments both for and against the possibility that, after UR had won the election, Putin would take up his seat and become the Speaker. A major advantage of being Speaker would be the constant access he would have to the media, in addition to his public exposure as - Khramchikhin continued to believe - the next chairman of Gazprom.

This whole scenario, he held, with the compliant Dmitri Medvedev as the new president, would ensure that Putin and his associates would retain firm control over both political power and the world of business and finance, i.e., over the all-important status quo. There was no need for him to do what some observers foresaw and suddenly select a more effective candidate than Medvedev. All of Russia’s opposition groups had been successfully neutralized, and Putin’s skillful handling of the Ustinov case in June had brought under control the continuous and potentially destabilizing conflicts over money and power within the elite. Thus, since “Medvedev has already been sufficiently well launched into orbit (raskruchen)”, it was “absolutely incomprehensible why anyone would start launching a new successor from ground zero. Although, of course”, Khramchikhin added cautiously, “nothing can be excluded.”[37]

Finally, eighth, as noted on p. 2, CEC head Aleksandr Veshnyakov’s lengthy interview published on July 18 included a brief but notable comment towards the end. When the interviewer noted that “Much is now being said about pre-term elections for the State Duma”, he replied laconically: “It’s the same situation as with my pre-term resignation. Much is being said about it, but there’s no basis for it”. [38] Whether this was the truth, or he was knowingly or unknowingly spreading disinformation, we cannot know.

Conclusions: How likely is Putin to call early elections? If he does, what might be the most plausible circumstances?

This final section of the paper involves imagining domestic and international circumstances that may or may not come to pass, and also trying to understand the individual psychology and actions of key actors, especially Putin’s. Thus what follows is highly subjective.

1. The quantity of discussion of pre-term elections

First we may note a not specially important, but still interesting point, namely that the total quantity of public discussion of early election scenarios over the last year has been small. Nonetheless, it has been somewhat greater than the quantity of discussion of Yeltsin resignation scenarios in the period August ­ December 1999.[39] This suggests that we should not dismiss a possible outcome (pre-term elections) just because it has not been discussed much in public. Yeltsin’s unexpected resignation shows that this would be a mistake.

On the other hand, the existence of a precedent does not mean that the scenario of 1999 will necessarily be repeated in some form in 2006-2007. Thus two scenarios in which it is not repeated are described briefly in section 4 below.

2. The political styles of Yeltsin and Putin

Yeltsin was more impulsive than Putin, and much more inclined, when necessary, to take major political risks. But he was, in addition, almost as firmly focused as Putin is on two bedrock interests: his personal security from arrest and the financial prosperity of himself and his family.

3. Putin’s basic instincts

Putin can be said to have three basic instincts. The first is to be cautious, wary, and vigilant about defending his deepest interests. As just stated, he considers these to be his political and physical security and his financial prosperity. In the latter regard his appetite appears to be larger than Yeltsin’s.

His second basic instinct is to be orderly and predictable, to play by the rules of his personal clan and of the wider “corporation” of the special services in which he made his career, and to follow regular political procedures.[40]

At this point, problems start to arise for him. On a few occasions the “regularity instinct” has come into conflict with, and been trumped by, the political security instinct. This can be seen in the impulsiveness behind his dismissals of prime minister Kasyanov in 2004 and procurator-general Ustinov in 2006, and perhaps in his decision to have the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky arrested in 2003.

Another problem is that - at least since 1999 - Putin has not belonged exclusively to one clan. In addition to his “natural” St Petersburg clan, in 1996-99 he was also absorbed into the “Yeltsin Family clan”, which he probably cannot leave. The main reason, it seems, if one assumes a widely held belief to be true, is that some of his wealth is handled for him by Family member Roman Abramovich, including a portion of the $13 billion received by the latter for the 2005 sale of Sibneft.[41]

This difficult and probably insoluble situation makes Putin potentially vulnerable to pressure and even blackmail -- both by the Family and also, for example, by Igor Sechin and his associates, who badly want him to remain in office. This is one of the main reasons why the scenario of a third presidential term for Putin can by no means be ruled out, even though it goes against his basic instinct for orderliness and rule-following. Certainly there has been widespread and mounting pressure on him to serve a third term, both from regional groups and from some prominent politicians[42], pressure that must be set against numerous statements by Putin and some key colleagues that he will not do this.

A third instinct of Putin’s, which can probably also be called basic, appears to have grown stronger in recent years. As many commentators have noted, he enjoys the pleasures of life, chafes at the constraints placed on him by the presidency, and may therefore be strongly attracted by the idea of departing earlier than in March 2008.

In particular, the presidency leaves him much less time than he would like for sports, travel, leisure, and, in general, enjoying his wealth. It also imposes on him greater psychological stress than he likes or was prepared for by his previous career. Political dilemmas constantly force him into messy compromises, humiliating reversals of course, and the painful breaking of promises. And myriad individuals and groups try to obtain political or financial favors from him, often in the most devious ways.

On occasion, Putin has talked with some frankness on this topic. In September 2004, for example, he said that he had never thought about a political career, “above all because politics didn’t attract me very much. It always seemed to me to involve a lot of blather, behind which there was little reality. You have to talk a lot, and the things you say are sometimes ­ perhaps more often than not ­ difficult to carry out. Precisely this circumstance always inhibited me from taking part in politics.”

As for being president, Putin said, “it dictates many things in my behavior, and involves certain limitations on my personal freedoms.” Also, “I have to try to stay at a certain distance from all these interest groups, and from individuals. But a person cannot live in a space without any air, in isolation. So I try to maintain my relationships with people who don’t want from me decisions connected with the exercise of my presidential powers.”[43]

On another occasion, Putin discussed at a public meeting various ideas about how long a presidential term should be. He commented as follows on the suggestion that it should be seven years rather than the current four: “To carry out one’s duties as head of state, one has to devote one’s full energy to them. To give one’s full energy throughout a seven-year term ­ one would go mad”.[44]

My conclusion regarding this section of the paper is that the potential conflicts between Putin’s three basic instincts, conflicts that are aggravated by his simultaneous membership of two incompatible clans, are bound to become more acute as the election season draws near. This increases the chances that he will not be able to control the succession to the extent that he would like, and possibly not at all. It also increases the unpredictability of the circumstances in which succession issues are likely to play out. These circumstances are already unpredictable, because personality and informal groups are often the key factors in a Russian polity where institutions are weak and have become steadily weaker in recent years.

4. Some brief succession scenarios

a. Putin agrees to serve a third term

In light of the above reflections, and leaving aside 1. various public rationales that might be offered for a third term, and 2. any discussion of extreme contingencies which might be factors, such as terrorist acts or international crises, the most plausible major causes that might produce this outcome would be:

- Putin cannot find a successor who (a) is definitely electable (even using intensive manipulation and falsification) and (b) he is sure will preserve the financial and security interests of himself and his associates.

- He is persuaded or even blackmailed into staying on by his silovik associates and perhaps also the Yeltsin “Family”, both of which groups have a powerful interest in the political and economic status quo being reliably preserved.

- If Russia’s relations with the West should become increasingly fractious and hostile over the next year, this would play into the hands of the siloviki, reduce or eliminate Putin’s reported hopes of getting a top job in an international organization, and thus increase the chances of a third term scenario.

b. Putin serves out his term and then leaves: no early presidential or Duma elections are called

This is the scenario that Putin’s “regularity instinct” must prefer, and that he may still be hoping for. It may play out to his satisfaction, especially if he finds a suitable successor and domestic and international events evolve favorably. It could also play out, but not to his satisfaction: he might lose control over the choice of his successor, but not dare to launch some alternative scenario at the last moment.

However, in certain circumstances his instinct for personal and financial security could derail his orderly elections scenario. Either of two developments, or a combination of them, could do this. First, if his chosen successor should perform poorly, and/or, second, if negative domestic and/or international events should gather momentum, he might feel compelled to call early elections. In doing so, he would be trying to preempt the danger that, if he failed to act quickly, he could lose control over the succession. The outcome could involve the successful election ­ through extensive manipulation - of his chosen individual. Alternatively, with some quick constitutional fixing, it could feature Putin winning a third term in an early election.

c. Putin opts for early elections because things are going well

The background and mechanics of this sort of scenario are discussed on pages 9 ­ 10 and 13 -

14. It posits favorable domestic and international developments in the short term, and a cautious Putin deciding that these are the best circumstances in which to act early. In this way he would, depending on circumstances, either get a solid UR majority elected to the Duma, and/or get his successor elected to the presidency without difficulty and himself launched into a more agreable and less stressful way of life.

Underlying his actions would be calculations of this sort: If I were to let the elections take place on schedule in December 2007 and March 2008, then by that time:

- the priority national projects may have provided little or no benefit to most Russians, and may have caused positive harm by causing inflation to rise;

- Medvedev may have failed to gain enough popular and elite acceptance, so it might be difficult or even impossible to get him elected;

- new and devastating terrorist acts might have shaken the people’s trust in me;

- a combination of negative factors might have stirred the population out of its current political apathy and produced mounting opposition to me;

- the rather tense atmosphere of the G-8 summit might have led on to increasing tensions and hostility in our political and economic relations with the West: this could cause me electoral problems;

- and Sechin and the Yeltsin Family might have found effective ways to blackmail me into serving a third term.

In short, it’s better to act while the going is good, and not risk losing control of events.

d. Putin opts for early elections when things start to go badly

This scenario is similar to the previous one, except that Putin temporizes before implementing it. In this way he might increase the risk that something would go wrong as the scenario plays out.

In conclusion, the above analysis shows that many scenarios and sub-scenarios are possible, for the situational reasons stated. They are also possible, as noted on p. 17, for the broader reason that since Russian political institutions are weak, the actions of determined groups and individuals can easily lead to unexpected outcomes.

It may or may not be likely that Putin will opt for pre-term presidential and/or Duma elections. But if he does, they could, as we have seen, feature in a variety of possible scenarios. In any case, observers need to watch more carefully than they did in 1999 for any signs of such elections ­ or indeed of a third term - being prepared.

These signs might include the following:

- the tempo of political events suddenly becomes more intense;

- Putin makes a lot of personnel changes to put people off balance and show who’s boss;

- The number of arrests and harassments of important businessmen and officials sharply increases;

- Unified Russia steps up its attacks on its two main electoral enemies, as defined by Surkov in his February 7 speech (see p. 8), i.e., the “oligarchic party” and the fascistic, isolationist right;

- Unified Russia’s leaders start to jockey intensively over who should occupy the top positions on the party’s electoral lists throughout Russia;

- Putin agrees to become the leader of Unified Russia;

- The Sechin group becomes more powerful and appears to exercise growing control over Putin;

- the same group orchestrates an increasing number of nationalizations and/or de facto expropriations of the assets of notable businessmen.

The last two signs would, of course, tend to point to a third Putin term, rather than any early elections.

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FOOTNOTES

[1] I am grateful for bibliographic help and constructive criticism regarding this paper from a number of colleagues, especially Robert Otto, John Dunlop, and Martin Dewhirst.

[2] Notably, the informal group thought to exist around Igor Sechin. True, this group appears to have tried in Spring 2006 to insure itself against the danger that Putin would absolutely refuse to serve a third term, by quietly promoting procurator-general Vladimir Ustinov as its candidate for the succession. However, Putin seems to have negated this idea when he suddenly dismissed Ustinov on June 2 and, later, gave him the lesser job of justice minister.

[3] Natalya Kostenko, “Veshnyakov progovorilsya”, Nezavisimaya gazeta, June 19, 2006. She interviewed commission member Vadim Solov’ev and Duma deputies Viktor Ilyukhin, Sergei Reshul’skiy, Viktor Kuznetsov, and Anatoliy Lokot’. For CEC head Veshnyakov’s opposite view, see towards the end of his long interview, “Aleksandr Veshnyakov: U nas budut vybory bez vyborov”, Nezavisimaya gazeta, July 18, 2006.

[4] Sergey Nikolayev, “Nachalo izbiratel’nogo marafona ili ocherednoi fal’start? Poyavilis’ razgovory o dosrochnykh parlamentskikh vyborakh”, Rossiya, no. 22, June 22, 2006.

[5] Aleksandr Khramchikhin, “I vse-taki Medvedev….”, July 6, 2006, www.prognosis.ru/news/rdemo/2006/7/6/hramchihin.html.

[6] Anastasiya Kornya, “Duma o samorospuske”, Vedomosti, July 5, 2006.

[7] In referring to “the president”, Medvedev can be understood as meaning the next and/or the present president. “Dlia protsvetaniya vsekh nado uchityvat’ interesy kazhdogo”, Ekspert, no. 28, July 24, 2006.

[8] Duma elections are planned for December 2007, and presidential elections for March 2008.

[9] In some circumstances a third term would probably seem less repellent to him. These include: 1. if he should simply not be able to find a viable successor who he believed would unfailingly safeguard the interests of himself and his associates; 2. if a major act of terrorism prior to the presidential election should dangerously destabilize the political situation; and 3. if a major foreign policy crisis should do the same.

[10] See note 2 above.

[11] His two interviews and one article on this subject appeared in Segodnya of Sept. 20, Oct. 19, and Dec. 25, 1999. On Oct. 19 he predicted correctly that December 31 was the likely date for Yeltsin’s resignation.

[12] .However, an FBIS Foreign Media Note, “Yeltsin Resignation Scenario”, appeared on Sept. 7, 1999, ref. FTS19990907001633. This was based on Russian media materials. It ended with some prophetic comments about the circumstances in which the scenario might plausibly be played out. Also, on Sept. 22, 1999, I devoted part of a public lecture at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington to a discussion of the evidence available on the subject up to that date.

[13] Aleksei Levchenko, “Kommunisty gotovyatsya k dosrochnym vyboram”, June 18, 2005, www.gazeta.ru/2005/06/18/oa_161121.shtml.

[14] Aleksandr Budberg, “Putin uidet do sroka? Prezidentskie protivorechiya”, Moskovskiy komsomolets, Nov. 18, 2005.

[15] In October Putin had already made Medvedev the overall director of his much trumpeted social and economic projects of national priority. In promoting Sergei Ivanov, Putin evidently regarded him as potentially either the prime minister under a Medvedev presidency, or the president, if he should perform well and Medvedev badly. To simplify the analysis in this article, I shall omit further discussion of Ivanov.

[16] This is not widely known in either Russia or the West. They were married, it seems, in early 2005.

[17] Here the thrust of Budberg’s argument implies a meaning not just of “early”, but of “too early”. He assumes that readers will understand why elections in March 2008 would be too late, i.e., that over two and a half years there would be too many chances for Medvedev (or any other putative candidate) to make serious mistakes and be attacked and undermined by, in particular, his silovik opponents.

[18] On June 15, 2006, he caused a stir by indirectly suggesting this possibility himself. Aiming to convey his intention to keep succession decisions exclusively in his own hands, he said that his successor might not be either of the two current front-runners (i.e., Medvedev and S. Ivanov), and could be someone who “is not very well known to the media”. “Putin: Imya preemnika ne na slukhu”, June 16, 2006, http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/p.107292.html.

[19] Aleksandr Khramchikhin, “Siloviki ne stanut mirits’ya”, www.prognosis.ru/news/politic/2005/12/1/hrm.html.

[20] Three weeks later he took the logical further step of predicting that early Duma elections might be called too, and developed some his arguments: “Vlast’ popytaetsia sokhranit’ stabil’nost’”, December 22, 2005, www.prognosis.ru/news/politic/2005/12/22/hr2006.html.

[21] “Korporatsiya ­ edinstvenno vozmozhniy variant”, www.prognosis.ru/news/politic/2006/2/9/gazputin.html.

[22] This had been reported and similarly interpreted a week earlier by Natalya Gorodetskaya: “Kreml’ dostraivaet munitsipial’nuiu vertikal’”, Kommersant, February 3, 2006.

[23] Full text published at www.er.ru, Feb. 22, 2006. Shorter versions appeared later in several papers.

[24] “Stsenariy na zavtra”, Yezhednevnyi zhurnal, www.ej.ru/comments/entry/3170, March 3, 2006.

[25] In this connection, UR rammed the last of its many amendments to the election laws through the Duma ­ on their first reading - on July 8, the final day of the spring session .It did this against sharp protests from the opposition and also, interestingly enough, from the CEC head, Aleksandr Veshnyakov, who, clearly with support from one of the Kremlin factions, soon returned to the subject in even sharper terms in a number of interviews. See, for example, the powerfully argued objections of Veshnyakov and the communists’ number two leader Ivan Mel’nikov in “Gosduma prinyala izbiratel’nye popravki nevziraya na protesty Veshnyakova”, July 8, 2006, http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/Election/p.108455.html, and Veshnyakov’s further protests in a long interview (“Navstrechu vyboram”, Novaya gazeta, July 17, 2006).

Here he said that the “ridiculous amendments” adopted by the UR majority on July 8 would, if passed into law, make it possible “to lawfully exclude from an election any candidate whom the authorities dislike. That’s why we in the CEC spoke out strongly against them, seeing that such means cannot be written into rules for the civilized democratic conduct of elections. They are illegitimate, and we …. will do everything to prevent them from becoming legal norms.” Veshnyakov also focused on a particular amendment that provides mechanisms for early voting, pointing out that such mechanisms had opened the door to serious cheating and physical violence when used in Karachayevo-Cherkessia in 1999 and also more recently in Belarus.

At the same time, he expressed confidence that at least most of the damage could be put right either during the amendments’ second Duma reading, or later by the Federation Council, or, as a last resort, by the president.

[26] The awkward fact that this would involve the Duma declining to express confidence in a government headed by Medvedev, and thus damaging Medvedev politically, might be explained away by his supporters claiming that the Duma’s objection was only to certain ministers, not to Medvedev.

[27] While such a move does not violate the Constitution, it would - for the three months leading to the elections - create the same fragile political situation that existed when Putin held both these offices in early 2000. The situation would be fragile because the Constitution does not specify further succession contingencies beyond those already described. Thus it provides no rules for who would become acting president if the individual who is both acting president and prime minister should die or become incapacitated.

[28] Natalya Kostenko, “Putin napomnil ministram o 2007 gode”, Nezavisimaya gazeta, June 20, 2006, ITAR-TASS, June 19, 2006.

[29] When asked about this in an interview, Belkovsky gave this intriguing but tantalizing answer: “I am friendly with many siloviki, but perhaps not with the particular ones you have in mind.” By the latter he probably meant the siloviki from St Petersburg who have longstanding ties with Putin and were promoted by him to high positions. Novye izvestiya, Jan. 14, 2005. Both here and in another interview (“Eto piterskie chekisty obsluzhivayut menia”, Moskovskie novosti, March 26, 2004) he insisted that he was independent, and also claimed justifiably enough that his views would never be approved by official Kremlin censors.

[30] “Press-reliz: Opredelen krug preemnikov Putina: Po itogam press-konferentsii Stanislava Bel’kovskogo”, www.apn.ru, September 13, 2005.

[31] See p. 3 of the transcript of his answers as the interviewee on the Ekho Moskvy radio show “Razvorot” on June 19, 2006, www.echo.msk.ru/programs/razvorot/44279/index.phtml.

[32] Analysis of Russian political situation circulated on a non-attributable basis.

[33] Natal’ya Mel’nikova and Ivan Rodin, “Molchanie prezidenta”, Nezavisimaya gazeta, July 3, 2006.

[34] Personal information from a well informed Russian source, June 2006.

[35] Anastasiya Kornya, “Duma o samorospuske”, Vedomosti, July 5, 2006. Kornya quoted critics who pointed out that the proposed law would directly violate the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches.

[36] See Medvedev’s last answer in his long “programmatic” interview, “Dlia protsvetaniya vsekh nado uchityvat’ interesy kazhdogo”, Ekspert, no. 28, July 24, 2006.

[37] Aleksandr Khramchikhin, “I vse-taki Medvedev…..”, July 6, 2006, www.prognosis.ru/news.rdemo/2006/7/6/hramchihin.html.

[38] “Aleksandr Veshnyakov: U nas budut vybory bez vyborov”, Nezavisimaya gazeta, July 18, 2006.

[39] The situation regarding Duma elections was different in 1999 from what is has been in 2005-2006. In 1999 there was no discussion of the elections that were due in December being brought forward. Rather, there was much discussion of the possibility that Yeltsin would postpone or cancel these elections to avoid the danger of a victory by the parties aligned behind his team’s opponents, Yevgeny Primakov and Yuri Luzhkov.

[40] The most insightful analysis of this instinct of Putin’s that I have read is Stanislav Bel’kovskiy, “Patsany, ili logika Vladimira Putina”, June 28, 2006, www.apn.ru/publications/article9924.htm.

[41] See for example Sergei Dorenko’s radio interview on Ekho Moskvy, June 19, 2006, www.echo.msk.ru/programs/personalno/44236/index.phtml, p.6 of the transcript.

[42] A useful though far from exhaustive summary of this pressure can be found in Mar’yam Magomedova and Yevgeny Zubchenko, “Piar na loyal’nosti”, Novye izvestiya, July, 21, 2006.

[43] ITAR-TASS, “Putin nikogda ne dumal, chto budet zanimat’sya politikoi”, Sept. 1, 2004.

[44] “Putin sam nazovet imya svoego preemnika”, newsru.com, Feb, 12, 2004. The commentator Stanislav Belkovsky has often noted Putin’s attraction to a life of luxury. One of his most insightful and provocative reflexions on this theme is his essay “Zhena Vladimira Putina”, November 3, 2004, apn.ru/publications/print1167.htm.