#14 - JRL 2006-247 - JRL Home
Russia Profile
November 3, 2006
Russia Profile Experts’ Panel: A Future Role for Putin
Introduced by Vladimir Frolov
Contributors: Andrei Lebedev, Andrei Seregin, Sergei Shishkarev, Andrei Zagorski
Last week, President Vladimir Putin held his annual nationwide televised Q&A session. This time he did not break much new ground or unveil any major policy initiatives. Mostly he comforted his people and dispensed fatherly advice.
However, there was one piece of news in Putin’s comments that attracted widespread attention. Responding to a plea by a villager in Siberia who was visibly concerned with the troubling prospect of a Russia without Putin after 2008, Putin rushed to assure the nation that nothing terrible would happen. Putin affirmed what he had said many times before: although he likes his job, he will not defy the Constitution and run again. But, in a new twist, he said that after leaving office he intends to use his continuing popular support to influence events in the country in a way that would be true to the peoples’ interests.
This statement, however, begs another question: what kind of position will Putin hold in order to continue influencing the political events in the country?
According to Kremlin-watchers, there is no shortage of options: he could chair the Public Chamber; he could replace Sergey Mironov as Federation Council Speaker; he could join and become the leader of a political party that would win the next Duma elections and become either the new Duma Speaker or Prime Minister; he could join an opposition party; or he could chair Gazprom or some other dominant energy company. This list basically says one thing Putin’s role after he leaves office remains unknown.
Exactly how will Putin shape his own role in the system he seeks to perpetuate? Will the two-party system take root in Russia? Will the West accept this imitational form of political pluralism and electoral democracy in Russia?
Sergei Shishkarev, Deputy Chairman, Russian State Duma Committee on Energy, Transportation, and Communications:
The Kremlin’s recent devotion to creating a two-party system in Russia seems to indicate that Putin’s future may be in party politics. Last week, a new large center-nationalist party was created by merging three smaller parties the Party of Life, the Rodina Party, and the Pensioners’ Party. While the new party still has to prove its political mettle, it has the potential given the Kremlin’s support and unlimited access to the airwaves to break United Russia’s monopoly on power and squeeze out the Communists and Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democrats from the political scene. Some analysts predict that the Duma elected in 2007 will actually be composed of two mega-parties.
In this scenario, Putin seems to view himself as the head of both of these parties at once. Although the parties represent different and sometimes warring elite factions, both pledge their unequivocal allegiance to Putin. They are united in their interest in keeping the Putin system intact, which means that political competition in Russia will now be allowed to unfold between the two elite groups, forcing all other political forces out of the competitive political process. And Putin will retain the position of the highest arbiter.
The two elite groups will trade control of the Duma and share access to the spoils and resources. Thus, neither group will be left a perpetual outsider holding a grudge against the system itself, but rather would have the vital interest in preserving the system. In this way, the Putin system will continue to perpetuate itself, while leaving other forces on the margins of serious politics. The old liberals and the Communists will remain as political minorities, existing only to entertain Western reporters in Moscow.
In this scenario, Putin does not really need to join either of the two parties. Rather he will preserve his political authority based on his popular support and will continue to set the political agenda either through the leadership of both parties, who will remain loyal to him, or through his chosen successor, who would have the title of president without any power. Another option might be to set up an informal National Political Conference, composed of prominent political figures. Putin would chair the Conference and allow it to set the national agenda.
It is fairly obvious that the West will not have any say in how Russia organizes itself after Putin. The West will accept any political order that Putin leaves behind, provided that it retains all the markers of a pluralist democratic system. The West will surely have no problem with a competitive two-party system in Russia, which will hopefully make the country more stable and predictable.
Andrei Zagorski, Associate Professor, MGIMO-University, Moscow:
The idea to create two bigger parties, both supportive of the president, has been discussed for a long time. The only disagreement centered on the method to be used for creating them.
Now that the new Kremlin party project has been launched, all that is left is to determine whether this construction will work. Both the United Russia Party and the new hybrid Just Russia party can only obtain a meaningful representation in the Duma in the absence of genuine political competition. However, both parties still depend heavily on the application of “administrative resources.” When regional governors and local authorities are pushed to ensure high numbers for both the obedient majority and the obedient opposition, it is impossible to know how they will solve this puzzle.
Putin’s possible assumption of a leadership position in United Russia has also been considered, although this isn’t really practical. In order to lead the party in the Duma, or to take the speaker’s position, Putin should represent that party in the elections prior to the presidential ballot. Is this option available to the president? If not, this obstacle could be removed either by law or by moving the presidential election four months ahead of the schedule.
Nevertheless, in the position either of Duma speaker or prime minister, Putin would have to subordinate himself to his successor, or to seek to increase the political role of his new office at the expense of that of the new president. Although the latter would not be difficult given Putin’s popular support, it would not help preserve the current political order, leading instead to increasing competition within the ruling class.
It is unlikely that Putin would unnecessarily challenge the existing political system or subordinate himself to his successor. A behind-the-scenes role linked not to any formal institutions but, rather, to informal ones, like a “Putin endowment” would probably be more effective for keeping doors open for Putin, including his eventual comeback in 2012 or even earlier.
Andrei Lebedev, Senior Associate, the State Club Foundation, Moscow:
It’s no use pondering whether Putin will lead one party or another. In the end, this will be his personal decision. Much wider popular support will indeed be necessary for a two-party system to take hold in Russia. At this point, such support is at a minimal level.
According to a poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) last June, only 14 percent of the respondents supported a two-party system, while 26 percent preferred a multi-party system. Nineteen percent are against parties altogether and 16 percent support a return to a one-party system. More importantly, almost half of all Russians are now convinced that competition between parties brings more harm than benefit.
Startling though this may be, it is certainly indicative of the hard work ahead for the proponents of a two-party system, no matter what political forces would be involved.
The most important thing necessary for the two-party system to succeed is trust; the voters must trust the parties in question. There are two simple ways to win trust: either to found a party around a popular issue, or for an existing party to adopt such an issue as a signature platform. However, not every popular issue will generate trust, as the Rodina party found out earlier this year when it flirted with extreme nationalist sentiments in the country.
Or, one could simply use a popular party as a building block for the system. That’s exactly what was done in creating the “Just Russia” party.
Since almost every second Russian has no use for competition between parties, one of the most important tasks for the proponents of the two-party system would be to make parties compete and achieve positive results on some issues that resonate with the public. These could include taxes, driving regulations, alcohol abuse, imports of some consumer goods, or illegal immigration but they have to hit the nerve of the average Russian citizen. This could restore some trust in political parties and begin paving the way for a truly competitive political system.
Andrei Seregin, Senior Political Analyst, National Laboratory for Foreign Policy, Moscow:
There has already been much speculation over Putin’s role beyond 2008. Certainly the fatherly tone of Putin’s recent Q&A session shows him trying to put on a kind of Den Xiao Ping mantle to stay aloof but still in power. The problem, as always, rests with the Russian political establishment - painstakingly trying to elaborate an acceptable way for Putin not to retire from the scene.
Putin’s heirs face a great dilemma they have to choose between democracy and stability. His popularity soaring among Russian voters, Putin is the basic element of political stability in today’s Russia it’s already quite obvious that neither of his designated or self-appointed heirs apparent boast that kind of support. The public finds it hard to accept the fact that there will be a time when Putin will not be president. The possible scenarios for his future are numerous and sometimes quite breathtaking. Nothing is impossible in the search for relevant precedents in world history.
Paraphrasing Douglas McArthur, “there can be no substitute for presidency” if you want to make a difference in today’s Russia. It’s even more obvious given the longstanding tradition of iron-handed rule in Russian history and the success of Putin’s presidency in the eyes of most Russians, who are still smarting over the democracy nightmare of the 1990s. Under Putin, Russia’s middle class began to spend, save, and plan for the future of their children. Russians learned long ago to appreciate that kind of liberty.