Subject: Putin throws light on his post-presidency plans
Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2007
From: "Vlad Sobell" <Vlad.Sobell@dir.co.uk>
President Putin has hinted that he may seek to become Russia's Prime Minister after leaving the presidential office. He has also thrown his weight in support of the dominant United Russia party ahead of the parliamentary elections.
His remarks have widely and almost unanimously been interpreted as confirmation that he intends to remain a leader for life.
This paper shows that, as has (unfortunately) become the norm, Putin's intentions have been seriously misrepresented. An evaluation of his recent responses at the annual Valdai Club meeting permits an alternative interpretation.
This evidence shows that Putin will likely work to create a genuine multi-party system, thus endowing Russia's emerging democracy with greater stability.
His success in this respect cannot be guaranteed, as his continued presence may turn out to be a problem rather that solution. However, the widespread notion that he is driven by the desire to cling to power at any cost is utterly misplaced.
Putin hints at planning to become Prime Minister have been misinterpreted
Following his September replacement of Prime Minister and the government reshuffle, President Putin on 1st October once again stunned Russia watchers by hinting that he might seek to become the PM himself. The occasion was his confirmation at the congress of the dominant pro-Kremlin United Russia party that he would lead the UR's list of candidates in the December elections. Having accepted the honour, Putin added that it was "entirely realistic" that he might eventually become Prime Minister, provided the UR won the elections and a "decent, capable and modern person with whom I can work" was elected president in March.
Unsurprisingly, the president's utterances have produced a deluge of commentary, with the overall thrust that Putin has finally revealed his cards on how he intends to remain in power indefinitely without technically reneging on his oft-repeated solemn promise to retire from the presidency as required by the Constitution. The plan supposedly is that Putin will become Prime Minister and will rule Russia from that platform, by-passing the inevitably weakened presidency and its new incumbent. Furthermore it is argued that this gambit would enable him to rule Russia as long as he is physically capable of doing so, as there is no constitutional limit on the prime ministerial term of office.
The fact that this interpretation of Putin's remarks has been embraced by most pundits and mainstream media does not mean that it is credible. Furthermore, it seems that rather than looking at the facts and carefully weighing their significance, the pundits are blindly going along with the long-standing, widespread "authoritarian" interpretation of Putin, which by definition does not allow for the possibility of his voluntary disengagement. In line with this interpretation, anything the Russian president will or will not do must be interpreted as a scheme to engineer his indefinite hold on power.
An alternative interpretation
At this point it is still too early to speculate on exactly what Putin will do after he ceases to be president. And it cannot be ruled out that he will, indeed, take up the post of Prime Minister. However, we can be fairly certain that whatever his plans may be, they do not include the grabbing of power for life and the requisite redesign of Russia's executive structure. Instead there are reasonable grounds to suggest that the post-Putin era will see the former president expending his phenomenal political capital on the broadening and further stabilising of the new democratic structure he has built. Putin will likely work on the development of the party political system and not on the transformation of the polity into a prime ministerial republic to suit his supposedly power-hungry aims.
Those doubting this conclusion should carefully read the transcript of Putin's dialogue with the group of foreign academics and journalists held in Sochi on 14th September. Known at the "Valdai Club", this informal gathering continued the four-year old tradition of Putin's often intimate exchanges with prominent Russia watchers. In the spirit of the Club, several questioners this year managed to elicit from Putin responses directly relevant to his post-presidential intentions.
From this material it is clear that the Russian president has thought long and hard about his future role and about how he can use his political capital to assist, rather than undermine, his successor. Fundamental to his vision is the belief that to preserve its integrity and stability, Russia needs a strong presidency. Thus he is aware that by weakening the next president he would not only be undoing his own work but also pursue a dangerous, destabilising path. In the same vein, the president clearly is aware of the inadvisability of any shifts in Russia's executive structure, that would presumably be needed should he wish to install himself as the Prime Minister for life. At the same time, however, Putin considers the current system as being excessively dependent on one person the president which makes it open to abuse and potentially unstable. On this point, his possible intention to assume the post of the Prime Minister should be interpreted as a widening and, hence, stabilising and pluralising of the system, rather than some kind of coup d'etat.
Furthermore, Putin is rightly concerned with Russia's lack of a proper party political system needed to furnish its emerging democracy with more substance. (This has been a recurring theme in his pronouncements over the years). This explains his intention to boost the prestige of the UR by agreeing to lead its election candidates' list.
Finally, Putin is clearly aware of the predicament he faces. His considerable prestige and popularity ensure that his post-presidency actions, whatever they may be, will make an impact be it positive or negative. But at the same time, he clearly cannot (and has no intention to) just disappear or emigrate. Short of engineering his own assassination, Putin simply cannot instantly vanish from Russia's political scene certainly not in the medium term.
There can be no doubt that Putin runs the risk of making some of the impact negative for example, by inadvertently overshadowing the next president. However, this is not the same as wanting to cling to power by any means and reshaping the system in the like manner. (We return to this crucial point below).
What Putin said at the Valdai discussions
The above conclusions can be supported by several noteworthy statements Putin made at the Valdai Club meeting. We do not suggest that he has not articulated such views previously, as indeed he has in his numerous pronouncements over time. However, the Valdai Club evidence is perhaps more significant for the obvious reasons of being fresh and being generated in the context of the increasingly topical speculation about Putin's post-presidential plans.
Asked about the need to develop a multi-party system and aid the development of democracy and his successor without undermining the latter, Putin replied as follows:
"I have no interest in weakening the President of Russia. I do not desire this. I want our president not only to be self-sufficient but also want him to be a person able to effectively fulfil his duties."
Adding that he hopes that his health will enable him to assist the next president Putin continued:
"This will be a factor on which the future president can count. But it is obvious that it will be necessary to come to an agreement on how to function in this way. But in any case, I will do all in my power to ensure both his independence as well as effectiveness. After all, I have spent all these years working to make Russia stronger. And Russia cannot be strong if the President's power is weak. I have no intention of undoing with my own hands everything that has been achieved over these last years".
Asked to comment on the conflicting views of the Valdai Club participants, with one group believing he will leave the scene and another that he will stay, Putin responded as follows:
"Both are correct".later adding that ".I took a firm decision a long time ago, at the outset, that any person in power must not change the structure of authority to suit himself."
"I am very concerned that today in Russia so much depends on only one person. And I want to change this. But when I said that both groups were right, I meant that I am not planning to disappear altogether. I am not planning to emigrate, to take up permanent residence in another country. I love my country, I am Russian".
Subsequently on the same theme and on his future plans:
". I am not planning to go anywhere. I am going to stay here. At this point I haven't decided exactly how I'll spend my time. But whatever I end up doing, I realise it will have an impact. That's a fact. I am not going to speculate about this impact or exaggerate its significance, but there it is. It will also depend on what I take up, either purely political work or something else?"
".It's absolutely clear: my activities will have an influence. But I say again, I am not planning to use it to destabilise or weaken the authorities. My goal is to ensure that power in Russia remains stable".
Putin had the following to say on the presidency and party politics:
"In medium-term perspective, Russia will need strong presidency. I cannot imagine anything else. And I have already spoken about the need to develop a multi-party system. How can we have a parliamentary republic in the absence of normal political parties? This would be chaos".
In the closing phase of the Valdai Club meeting Putin spoke of the need for effective parliament able to pass fundamental legislation (using the examples of countries, such as Italy, where this is often very difficult). In this context he noted the necessity of United Russia remaining a leading force, while suggesting that:
"In this respect.I am thinking about how to keep supporting United Russia.I have several options with varying degree of my involvement, and I will select one of them".
It is very significant, however, that Putin has gone out of his way to make it clear that he does not believe that the UR should have a lasting monopoly on power. Responding to a comment that prolonged UR domination has been recommended as a tried and tested model in countries such as Japan by the Kremlin's ideologist Vladislav Surkov, Putin commented:
"As regards the propositions by Surkov on the need of United Russia to preserve its political weight for decades, please note that I do not work for Surkov, but Surkov works for me".
".In any case.depending on what I will be doing after March 2008, I will act in a way that strengthens the multi-party system".
In the same context, Putin spoke of the need to support genuine social democratic force. (By "genuine" he meant a party not associated with the former Soviet Union, namely the Communist Party of the Russian Federation). He made it clear that he considers the relatively new "A Just Russia" party as a suitable candidate for this role.
Once again, he has gone in favour of genuine political competition:
"Granted that United Russia will be able to conduct policies corresponding to the interests of millions of people, enabling it to draw on the support of the majority of the population, it will manage to survive. But if it makes some mistakes, then I think there will in time arise an alternative responsible force in the shape of a party with a social democratic ideology, which will be able to assume responsibility for the country's fate".
Conclusions
It cannot be denied that Putin's vision of Russia's political evolution and his plans to continue to play a key part in it is problematic. In particular, while buttressing stability (and pulling Russia out of the chaos of the 1990's), he has moved in what his critics see as an authoritarian direction. Indeed, Putin himself has implicitly acknowledged this by his assessment that the system is excessively dependent on one person.
In this context, it could be argued that far from helping to deliver a cure, his continued presence cannot help but perpetuate the illness. As long as Putin is around, the system will inescapably suffer from a dependence on the "Father of the Nation". Putin may well genuinely desire to overcome this flaw, but he will unlikely succeed. The system can become genuinely self-sustaining only when its Father truly vanishes.
Yet acknowledging the potential for these risks is not the same as to argue that they will necessarily materialise. The election of Russia's new president will likely decisively alter the environment, with the new leader gradually taking over the authority now enjoyed by Putin. (Currently, observers cannot properly appreciate this point, as they are blinded by Putin's towering presence, but this will inevitably change).
While we cannot be certain that Putin will always obediently go with the flow of his diminishing influence, it is unlikely that he will desperately cling to power come what may, as his numerous detractors suggest. Based on what is known about him, we can be reasonably assured that he intends to come down in history as the founder of Russia's modern democracy, not as yet another post-Soviet leader for life.