Russia Profile
November 15, 2005
The Start of Operation Successor?
Putin Promotes Two Potential Heirs
Comment by Vladimir Frolov
Vladimir Frolov is a private political consultant in Moscow.
President Putin has finally made his move and all but designated a long-expected successor to rule Russia after his second presidential term expires in 2008.
That man is likely to be Dmitry Medvedev, a faceless bureaucrat and former presidential chief of staff, whom Putin appointed yesterday as first deputy prime minister a position created specifically for Medvedev.
The launch of Operation Successor was backed by the promotion of Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov to another newly created position of deputy prime minister, who will oversee the security services and Russia’s sprawling military-industrial complex.
Both men have long been rumored to be on Putin’s shortlist of successors, Ivanov’s public denials notwithstanding. State television channels have been working extra hours of late to raise their public profiles in a positive way.
Putin also made an important gesture towards Russia’s regional elites by appointing Sergei Sobyanin, the former governor of Tyumen region and former mayor of Lukoil’s “capital city” of Kogalym, to the post of the president’s chief of staff. The loyalty of regional elites will be of crucial importance during the final stages of Operation Successor, when Russian voters will be asked to ratify Putin’s personal choice in a nationwide presidential election. Sobyanin’s mission will be to make sure they rally around the right guy.
Although it is still possible that either man can make it all the way to the presidency, it appears more likely that Putin will place his primary bet on Medvedev, with Ivanov serving both as a fallback candidate should things go sour with Medvedev and his campaign manager should everything go according to plan.
Medvedev has several things going for him.
He is Putin’s most trusted advisor, who owes everything in his life to the president and nobody else. In his book “Conversations with the President,” Putin refers to Medvedev as someone “on whose arm I can lean.” Who better to entrust the imperial powers of the Russian presidency?
He also appears to be a compromise candidate for the Kremlin’s warring factions a lawyer from St. Petersburg with a mixture of statist and liberal economic views. Although not as brilliant as his predecessor Alexander Voloshin, Medvedev is a competent government administrator, but with limited experience in foreign and defense policies. He was the one responsible for Russia’s policy debacle during the Ukrainian elections last year.
Medvedev is the leader of the Gazprom faction in the Kremlin, but he seems capable of pragmatic deals with the head of the rival Rosneft faction Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff Igor Sechin. The fact that Medvedev is leaving the Kremlin signals the final settlement in the Kremlin’s “oil wars.” His continued presence in Gazprom as chairman of the board will guarantee that the terms of the deal are upheld throughout Operation Successor and beyond.
Medvedev’s reputation as a pragmatist and a moderate reformer will be appealing to foreign investors; he will also be readily accepted in the West as a successor to Putin’s pragmatic and predictable foreign policy course.
Medvedev has been entrusted with a high-profile and electorally appealing portfolio of overseeing the so-called “strategic national projects” reforming the nation’s healthcare and education systems, as well as housing and agriculture. Less than a month ago he was appointed as Putin’s deputy at the newly created Council on the Implementation of National Projects.
As a possible successor, however, Medvedev faces serious challenges.
Despite being extremely loyal to Putin, he lacks any significant political experience. The oversight of “national projects” seems to be ideally suited for creating at least a public perception of a successful track record.
However, his new portfolio is not without risks. The “national projects,” for all the money that could be thrown at them (about $5 billion in 2006 alone), could well flounder or fizzle out, as many similar well-intentioned initiatives have before in Russia. They are all politically controversial and the public’s reaction to them has so far been unpredictable.
Medvedev is uncharismatic and somewhat wooden in his public appearances; worse still, he projects an air of bureaucratic pomp and arrogance. He will undoubtedly be given enormous coverage on federal television channels while performing his duties as the manager of national projects, opening modern hospitals and universities. However he seems utterly untelegenic and unlikely to impress the Russian public in his television appearances, unless given special training.
Where Putin in 1999 was charismatic, hearty and crudely down-to-earth against the background of the ailing Yeltsin, Medvedev comes across as snobbish, aristocratic and devoid of any empathy toward ordinary Russians. And he will be sized up against a highly popular and appealing Putin. In short, as a presidential candidate, he will be a tough sell in an open and fair election. His promotion as a likely successor suggests that the next presidential election in Russia will be less than fair, at least in terms of the candidates’ access to the airwaves.
Medvedev has his work cut out for him, but he has no guarantees that he will make the final cut. Sergei Ivanov is there to ensure that state personnel, particularly in the security sector, are mobilized for Medvedev’s support, maintaining their loyalty to Putin’s hand-picked successor. But he is also there to become a fall-back candidate should Medvedev fail in his mission. Although Ivanov is not strong enough to beat someone like Alexander Khloponin or Dmitry Rogozin in a fair competition, he appears to be a better candidate than Medvedev, even if his public track-record has been equally lackluster.
Putin’s move appears to make early elections to the State Duma and the presidency a distinct possibility. It makes little sense to wait for the national projects to yield results by 2008. Rather, it will be quite enough for Medvedev to have a well-publicized political campaign in 2006 to show his prowess and be ready to stand in early elections. Spending the next two and a half years as a designated successor to Putin would expose him to unacceptable risks. But Putin will be the one who makes the final pick.