Russia Profile
November 18, 2005
Russia Profile’s Weekly Experts’ Panel: “Operation Successor 2008”
By Peter Lavelle
Contributors: Michael Heath, Dale Herspring, Sergei Roy, Andrei Tsygankov, Gordon Hahn, Tim Brenton
Peter Lavelle: Is Dmitry Medvedev the one?
Has “Operation Successor 2008” started? The shakeup in the Kremlin, centering on the promotions of Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov, would seem to support the view that it has. But many questions still remain.
Have the so-called factions in the Kremlin – the “liberal statists” and the “siloviki” – decided that Dmitry Medvedev is their compromise candidate to succeed Putin in 2008? What evidence supports such a claim? What evidence flies in the face of such a supposition?
How do the competing energy lobbies, which represent the vested interests of Gazprom and Rosneft, play into this medley?
Medvedev has been given a high profile and well-financed portfolio along with the task of overseeing national projects that address Russia’s most acute problems, including healthcare, education, housing and agriculture. Medvedev has not been awarded a plum job – all of these issues are pressing and politically sensitive. However, there is every reason to believe he will receive access to enormous funds, especially the Infrastructure Investment Fund, which is estimated to total $2.44 billion in 2006, $2.55 billion in 2007 and $2.56 billion in 2008.
Needless to say, he will be given considerable domestic media coverage with every opening of a new hospital, school and residential complex. Clearly, he is being positioned to be the “populist-caring” face of the Kremlin elite.
For all intents and purposes, Medvedev’s promotion puts him at least on a par with Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and quite possibly on a collision course with Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref, both of whom opposed playing politics with the budget at the expense of fiscal responsibility. We should expect lots of sparks within the cabinet as the presidential election nears.
If Medvedev succeeds in his new position, he will likely be made prime minister before the 2008 election. For all the bad press Fradkov gets, he does nothing more or less than is demanded of him by the presidential administration.
Medvedev understands how the government works. For the most part, he is pragmatic and ideologically neutral. Medvedev has intimate knowledge of the Kremlin’s infighting, including who wants what from whom. He may not have many “positives” in the minds of voters today, but what is more important is that he certainly has few “negatives.” Medvedev is young, articulate and reserved (just like his patron, Putin).
What about Sergei Ivanov? Is he the “muscle” behind “Operation Successor?” As deputy prime minister, it will be his job to mobilize state resources (covering all the security forces) to ensure that the “operation” comes to fruition. It is not surprising that Putin decided on Ivanov as an unofficial campaign manager for Medvedev – he is trusted and loyal to a fault.
Importantly, if Medvedev fails for some reason as the compromise candidate, Ivanov could be proposed as a stand-in. This makes sense: if something happens to Medvedev, the political elite would rather rally around a military-security figure than a politician.
Will the Kremlin’s “Operation Successor” succeed as outlined above or are there alternative paths the situation can take?
Michael Heath, political analyst, Aton Capital, Moscow:
I think that the assumption that Medvedev is poised to succeed Putin in 2008 is flawed. Security background is the key issue for any successor for the simple reason that the situation in the North Caucasus is a direct threat to Russia’s territorial integrity, not because of a valued association with the siloviki faction.
The very first task of any national leader is to ensure the territorial integrity of the country and its national defense. Apart from being present at national security briefings, Medvedev has no first-hand knowledge of the increasingly volatile situation in the republics abutting Chechnya, which are plagued by continuing political violence. In my view, this makes his accession to the top Kremlin job less likely.
The notion that the succession is being flagged now is also contentious, since Putin’s heir will not be someone directly connected to the three main factions but rather a candidate acceptable to them all, and to some degree autonomous from them. In one sense, Ivanov and Medvedev fit this description: they are more loyal to Putin than to the bureaucratic and business circles that make up the body of their respective groups.
The successor is thus likely to be presented to the three groups as a fait accompli in 2007 in order to deny them the time needed to mobilize a campaign to discredit the candidate. I think people are misguided when they refer Putin’s secretive managerial style to his KGB past; the Kremlin is a snake pit and secrecy is key to preventing massive campaigns against the selected candidate as factions attempt to advance their own nominee. This was the case with the secrecy that surrounded the selection of Alexei Miller to succeed Vyakhirev as Gazprom’s CEO in 2001 or Mikhail Fradkov’s appointment as prime minister in 2004. Obviously, these were two “yes men” for Putin to control. The president’s own heir will not be of this caliber – he will need to be a decision-maker – but I think the “fait-accompli” principle still holds.
As a result, it seems too early to say that Putin’s successor will be either Medvedev or Ivanov. It could just as easily be the FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev, who clearly has an intimate knowledge of the North Caucasus and the wider terrorist threat, or Dmitry Kozak, coming back from his post as the president’s envoy to the South Federal District with similar inside knowledge.
I know it’s less sexy but I think that Medvedev has simply been assigned the task of getting the government to tackle reforms as crises in health, education, housing and so forth become a threat to a smooth prelude to the 2008 transition while the government itself is paralyzed by division.
Ivanov has been a rank failure on military reform with the single exception of securing the fractious Army’s political support for Putin, an important issue during his appointment in 2001. He has similarly been given expanded powers to mount another attempt to reform this degraded institution.
The respective performances of the two may improve their standing in Putin’s eyes ahead of 2008 but I would still view Medvedev’s lack of security/military background as a major handicap. In that sense Ivanov would be much better placed to succeed Putin, particularly if he finally manages to achieve something with the Army.
Dale Herspring, professor of political science, Kansas State University:
I will leave speculation on Medvedev to others. I follow Ivanov more closely because of his role in the area of national defense. Furthermore, while I am probably in a minority of one, I think Ivanov’s promotion makes a lot of sense strictly for defense reasons. Permit me to explain.
Military reform is beginning to become a reality. The subordination of the General Staff (GS) to the Ministry of Defense (MOD), as well as restricting it to non-operational matters, helped bring some rationality into a very irrational situation. Training has become a reality this year – in comparison with the past, salaries are to be increased by 67% over the next three years, and weapons systems are beginning to trickle in, among other changes.
One major problem has been coordinating the military-industrial complex with the needs of the MOD. It is my understanding that Ivanov’s post will grant him a major say over defense industries. That would give him added authority.
In this regard, I would not rule out Head of the General Staff Yuri Baluyevsky’s comment that the promotion was largely “symbolic.” Someone needs to bring order into this process and Balyuevsky suggested that this would help Ivanov do exactly that.
Finally, I may be showing my age, but I am reminded of the time when the issue of Beria’s absence from the opera was noted. One suggestion was that he did not attend because he did not like opera. It turns out he did not attend because he had been shot or was about to be shot. My point is that I think we can get too “Kremlinological” this early in the game. Remember how many of us predicted that Putin would be president in June or July prior to his appointment? I don't see many hands raised. Ivanov is certainly in a strong position, but in this case I am persuaded to accept Baluyevsky’s response. I sat across the table from him and was very impressed with his manner and answers to questions. He may just be telling the truth.
Sergei Roy, editor of www.intelligent.ru
Kremlin Shakeup: Why? What for?
“Problem 2008” – the question of what will happen to/in Russia after Putin completes his second term in office – so dominates Russia watchers’ thinking that Monday’s announcement of a shakeup in the Kremlin was immediately seen as a (final) move in the resolution of that problem: Dmitry Medvedev has been more or less appointed by these analysts as Putin’s successor and Sergei Ivanov as Medvedev’s stand-in.
This reading of the shakeup appears to me to be somewhat hasty: there is no immediate link, I believe, between these appointments and “Operation Successor.” There are too many unknowns in the problem to read so decisive a meaning into the event, the main of these being, of course, the “place in the phalanx” which Putin has decided, or is deciding on, for himself.
It is much more reasonable, in my view, to take into account the immediate, and quite obvious, consequences of the new appointments: (a) the strengthening of the cabinet in the overall system of governance; (b) the strengthening of the president’s hand in the cabinet; (c) the strengthening of the political constituent in the cabinet vis-?-vis the economic one.
On point (a): The loss of the cabinet’s authority among the populace has recently become too painful to be tolerated. Prime Minister Fradkov has even been referred to on TV as “playing the fool.” Premiers have traditionally been seen as the president’s (and the nation’s) scapegoats rather than fools. The point is, though, that combining the roles of the scapegoat and effective manager is hard enough, without the additional complication. It even came to pass that a special council had to be set up within the presidential staff, headed by Medvedev, for dealing with the nation’s high-priority issues, which was immediately dubbed the second (I’d say first) cabinet. As presidential chief of staff, Medvedev could have attacked Fradkov as a scapegoat ten times a day. Now he has been ostensibly demoted to the status of Fradkov’s deputy, but in actual fact it was done to resolve the ambivalent “two governments” situation, I think. Regardless of who dominates whom, the cabinet is now in a stronger position to handle the overwhelming tasks it faces.
Point (b) is only too obvious: both Medvedev and Ivanov are among the people closest to the Man.
Point (c) is perhaps the most important. Until now, the situation in the cabinet has been too much in favor of the powerful liberal-economic quadrumvirate: Zhukov-Kudrin-Gref-Khristenko. With these latest changes, the cabinet assumes a politically clearer countenance and a more balanced and familiar structure, with two vice premiers running two distinct units within the cabinet: unit 1 is responsible for security, the military-industrial complex and other industries, unit 2 – for economic development and finances.
Rather than providing a definitive answer to the “Successor” conundrum, this new setup gives the runners in the presidential stakes the platform needed to show their worth in the next two years.
If I were to bet on the outcome of the race, my money would be neither on Medvedev (an obvious member of the hated caste, the bureaucracy) nor on Ivanov (the type of person known in Russian as “sluzhaka” or “good, conscientious officer” rather than a charismatic leader). Instead, I would bet my chemise on Sobyanin – not for his achievements (though they have been far from negligible) but for his potential appeal to the electorate.
Time will tell.
Andrei Tsygankov, professor of international relations, San Francisco State University:
It does look like Putin has entered a new stage of preparing Russia for transferring his power. Hopefully, this reshuffling of the government will stop speculations about the Kremlin’s search for ways to legitimize Putin’s third term. Too many analysts have insisted that Putin’s talk about respecting the constitution was mere rhetoric needed to buy more time. They have been proven wrong yet again.
Beyond that, however, it is difficult to predict anything definitive. Ivanov and Medvedev are Putin’s favorites, of course. And they are widely respected within the political class and deserve a shot at winning broader social support. But it is too early to tell whether they will take advantage of the platforms to which they have been propelled. Ivanov has not been terribly successful in reforming the army and is not particularly well-liked by the public. Medvedev is simply unknown to the public, and, many say, is too detached and uncharismatic to be able to connect with Russian society. Lack of charisma may be an asset in forging an intra-elite consensus, but is hardly an advantage in interacting directly with the people.
Such interaction is a must in Russia’s traditional model of power, in which the “Tsar-people connection” is the foundation, and the class of “nobles” is merely a superstructure. Both Yeltsin and Putin have taken advantage of this model. Suffice it to recall the former’s confrontation with the Supreme Soviet on behalf of the people and the latter’s famous “people and I have decided” expression.
Additionally, Putin is putting the former regional governor of Tyumen Sobyanin in play. This may be significant if Putin takes Russia’s interests beyond the two capitals seriously. Assuming he understands the importance of transforming Siberia and the Far East, he may also be wondering if Sobyanin is a better bet than the two elite loyalists from St. Petersburg.
Aside from the uncertainties of the political process and its participants, there are structural factors that, too, may bring further surprises and upset our calculations. Terrorism, for instance, remains very much in the picture, as we know from growing incidents of violence in the North Caucasus. Are the designated successors up to the task? Do they have adequate background, training, personal qualities? Do they have a viable program to secure and modernize Russia, or will they merely rely on the stature of their benefactor to win the power game?
Governing Russia is tough. Governing a Russia that is weak and insecure is even tougher. Putin has done his part, and done it unquestionably better than many of his predecessors. It remains to be seen whether his heirs can convince the public that they are up to the task. As for predictions, Russia’s politics will be sure to bring many surprises. It’s worth remembering that the first rule of accurate forecasts in Russia, frequently cited by seasoned observers, is that the “weather for tomorrow will be announced the day after tomorrow.”
Gordon Hahn, independent scholar of Russia and related issues:
Putin’s government appointments this week suggest three front-runners for the presidential nod, which will later come from Putin himself. Perhaps as late as after the December 2007 Duma elections. To make the choice now would risk allowing the public to grow tired of any clear ‘crown prince’ in the period before the 2008 presidential elections, when ?lan for him should peak. Similarly, poor performance in the crown prince’s new office would discredit both him and the president, undermining both “Operation Successor” and political stability as a whole. I am assuming here that Putin has thought this through.
The front-runners obviously are (in order of their position in the race for Putin’s favor thus far): (1) former Presidential Administration (PA) Chief, now First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, (2) Defense Minister and now also Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, and (3) new PA Chief Sergei Sobyanin.
Why do I include Sobyanin in the race? First, his promotion from a governor of a region, albeit perhaps Russia’s third most important one, is a major step that demonstrates the president’s utmost trust. Sobyanin is one of Putin’s favorite governors. He is regarded as a top-notch legal expert, which appeals to Putin’s legal educational background and suits his new office, as did his predecessor’s legal education.
Second, he sold Putin on the need to merge the autonomous districts with other regions (the subject of his doctoral dissertation), and there several such mergers will be carried out between now and the federal elections.
Third, he is considered to be a master of forging compromises between competing elite interests and factions, something that is crucial both for the administration chief and the presidency. This quality is shared by all three prospective candidates. Depending on how Sobyanin performs in comparison with Medvedev and Ivanov, the likely front-runners, he could be the compromise candidate that “satisfies” the front-runners’ supporting factions – the St. Petersburg lawyers and economists and the St. Petersburg chekists.
There is a certain “objective factor” in Sobyanin’s rise, given the growing power of Tyumen as Russia’s energy nucleus, much like Texas is to the United States, marking the beginning of Siberia’s rise to its rightful place in Russian politics. On the other hand, his regional origins from a place other than St. Petersburg cast the greatest shadow of a doubt over Sobyanin’s prospects, given the place of the Northern Capital’s elite in Russia’s high politics and the St. Petersburg roots of the two front-runners.
It has been argued that Medvedev is already the choice, because he has traversed the same path to “crown prince” that Putin himself has traveled – up through the ranks of the PA to the position of first deputy head and then over to first deputy premier. If this is true, then Sobyanin’s rise to PA Head, the office just vacated by Medvedev, is also significant. That Putin did not immediately appoint Medvedev to the post of premier suggests that he is keeping his options open and intends to delay his final decision, depending on the front-runner’s performance in implementing Putin’s new social program over the next two years. There is a real possibility that Medvedev will fail to execute Putin’s social welfare and infrastructure projects and/or be unpopular, considering bureaucratic obstacles and corruption and the long period until the elections.
Medvedev’s failure, all else being equal, would open the door to Ivanov, who is perhaps Putin’s most trusted associate. Ivanov might be the front-runner, were it not for the many failures in the security arena: naval disasters, terrorism, and stunted military reform. Ivanov’s KGB/FSB past would put him in the favor of the important siloviki. To some, his silovik status might be seen as a negative for Russia’s image abroad. But it needs to be remembered that Ivanov has traveled extensively as defense minister and is well-known and liked among world leaders.
The caveat is that the most important world leaders who know him best and are comfortable working with him are in the United States. By 2008, however, it may already be clear that the ruling American administration will soon be filled with an entirely new cohort of people. Untimely security failures now, with Ivanov officially in charge of the entire security bloc of ministries, would require a third option – Sobyanin, whose relative obscurity in the “apolitical” PA would then be a plus.
Tim Brenton, political analyst, Renaissance Capital, Moscow:
I would like to suggest an entirely alternative perspective on the recent government reshuffle, one that has seemingly been ignored by mainstream media, as most analysts jumped naively to put a positive spin on the week’s events. The alternative argument seems in many ways to be couched more closely in the realities of Russia’s current politics than in the wishful thinking often displayed by western observers.
This view suggests that moving Medvedev into his new role in the government is actually a victory for the administration’s security service veterans rather than its reformist liberals or the St. Petersburg pragmatist faction.
The first step is to dispute the assumption that Medvedev’s move into the government is a promotion. One thing that has been made clear over the last few years of the Putin regime is that the decision-making power both in terms of policy and strategy lies mostly with the Presidential Executive Office; therefore, any move from that office into the government is effectively a demotion. Medvedev has always been an important factor for maintaining the balance within the executive office between the major factions, where Deputy Chief of Staff Igor Sechin and Presidential Aide Viktor Ivanov represent the more statist siloviki elements and Medvedev with the support of Vladislav Surkov and others stand for the more Western liberal view. Medvedev's removal upsets this balance; though his replacement, Sergei Sobyanin, does not easily fit into either of these groups, his links with the natural resources industry seem account for his main credentials, perhaps suggesting further asset grabs by the state in that area.
There are other important symptoms that mark an increase in the influence of the siloviki rather than the process of choosing a presidential successor. Alexander Zhukov, the most senior reformist liberal in the administration, was effectively demoted. Not only does he now work for Medvedev, but he was also made junior to Sergei Ivanov, who holds the position of minister of defense and deputy prime minister with wide-ranging responsibility for all the main national security ministries.
The simple factor of timing also flies in the face of the established wisdom. The high profile of Medvedev’s new position is a double-edged sword: more exposure also comes with more scrutiny. Hand-in-hand with this is the fact that in his last role Medvedev had a great deal of influence. He now has genuine power with a great deal of government spending at his disposal. With that comes genuine responsibility, all too often a poisoned chalice for politicians seeking high office.
A substantial shift in the nature of Russia’s political system is required to support the view that Medvedev’s move is a nod to his candidacy in 2008 rather than the siloviki’s defeat of another obstacle toward gaining control of more strategic assets. The government must become relevant again for that to be the case. Though many of us would like to believe that the establishment of a more free and transparent regime is the inevitable final stage of Putin’s project for stable democracy in Russia, there is little evidence for it. I must admit to being torn, as I do see Putin’s possible political intent to create a stable and functioning Russian democracy. But that is far more of a gut instinct than a genuine intellectual judgment on the state of the country and the political elites. When considered in terms of the actual environment and present political dynamic, the recent government reshuffle takes on a very different meaning when looked at through the rose-tinted spectacles of speculation and rumor.