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#14 - JRL 9257 - JRL Home
Moscow News
www.MN.Ru
September 28-October 6, 2005
Putin's Likely Successor Still Unknown
By Andrei Belikov

The next presidential elections will take place two and a half years from now. Yet the media are highlighting the subject of his successor. This is not surprising because Russia has always attached the utmost importance to the role of its chief executive. As for Russia itself, it has lately been playing a noticeable role in global geopolitics.

In the first place, everyone is interested in whether Putin can be nominated for a third term. The president himself rebuts such a possibility, which would require making a relevant amendment to the Constitution. Indeed, he has not performed any unconstitutional act during his five and a half years in office; it would be illogical for him to make a drastic change in his policy course during his remaining 2.5 years. To be sure, his abolition of direct elections of regional governors was a rather resolute move. This step, however, would have been more significant had it been followed by other analogous moves.

Putin was never overambitious - he wouldn't undertake such a colossal responsibility as the presidency once again. He couldn't remain unaffected by such terrorist acts as the hostage-taking in Nord-Ost Theater and in the Beslan school, Kursk submarine disaster or by the Moscow blackout for that matter. No one can guarantee that over four years the country will not see more equally horrible disasters.

If Putin quits the presidency for at least four years, an amusing situation would arise, for to date no other Russian politician has a rating of more than 2.5%! This means that the aspirants to the presidency would be locked up in a desperate struggle to become real candidates for president.

One can safely say that none of our right-wing politicians would jockey for the presidency. The liberal movement's veterans, such as Chubais and Yavlinsky, are losing more and more of their adherents every year; their younger comrades-in-arms cannot boast of neither fresh ideas nor leadership qualities. There is also little hope that the right-wingers could unite around former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. Even if they succeed in overcoming their own ambitions, their nominee Kasyanov practically stands no chance of working his way to the presidency. In the first place, Putin enjoys such a high rating that the next president of Russia is unlikely to be his opponent. Secondly, should the present ruling establishment suddenly feel that the ex-prime minister poses some sort of danger to the Kremlin, the Prosecutor General's Office would pounce on him again with corruption charges. It would be extremely hard for Kasyanov (whom the people, giving a broad hint, have nicknamed Misha Two Percent) to prove his innocence.

Nor do we see any worthy candidates for president on the other side of the political spectrum. Here there are two veterans of Russian politics - Gennady Zyuganov and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who has lately run in all presidential elections. Dmitry Rogozin (who, by political views and image, stands somewhere between Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky) is sure to take part in the 2008 presidential run. These three candidates will fight hard for the second place. The first place will definitely go to the person groomed to take over Putin's role. Who is he?

It has long been rumored that Sergei Shoigu, Minister for Emergency Situations, will be the next president of Russia. Because this rumor has long been circulating, it would play against him by blunting the effect of unexpectedness if he becomes candidate for president - an effect that had worked wonderfully in favor of Putin himself. Another candidate from the Putin camp is the present Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who in a way is elusively similar to the incumbent president. If Putin really wants to stake on Ivanov, then Ivanov will have a very good chance of winning the 2008 presidential race. The only hitch is the lack of certainty that the defense minister's personality will suit all the competing sides inside the Russian political elite.

Other likely successors to Putin are said to be Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Zhukov and St. Petersburg's Chief Executive Valentina Matviyenko; their chance of becoming president, however, is minimal. Zhukov, I'm afraid, appears to be too intellectual in the eyes of the majority of voters. As for Valentina Matviyenko, she won't make it to the presidency because in Russia the attitude toward a female top politician has always been met with cynicism. Candidates like Dmitry Kozak and Georgy Boos are more likely to be successful than a lady of any caliber. Kozak, the president's plenipotentiary representative in the Southern Federal District, has firmly announced that he will not run. Trouble with Boos, the newly appointed governor of Kaliningrad Region, is that he is too closely associated with Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov.

Thus, betting on who will become the next president of Russia is a hopeless exercise. The more so since Vladimir Putin - unlike Boris Yeltsin, who had repeatedly named his likely successors - will keep silent until the last moment.