Presidential Election: Whose support can Dmitry Medvedev rely on?
file photo Igor Yurgens is Chairman of the Management Board at the Institute for Contemporary Development (ICD).
I'm not sure that Russia will have any competitive elections this time, nor do I see any need or possibility for this at the current stage of Russia's development. Therefore, I believe that the President will rely on his close relationship with the Prime Minister and on the fact that he and Vladimir Putin share basic values. The segments of the electorate that support him include young people, members of the Internet community, the upper-middle and middle class, the military and security agencies being supervised and overhauled by Medvedev.
To my mind, Medvedev has a broad support base. Among political parties, the United Russia Party should share its leader's views since to a large extent most possible developments in the United Russia and the Russian Popular Front depend on his stance. I believe that United Russia should support President Medvedev's modernization program once its leader will adopt a firm position on the matter. There is no doubt that this program has the support of the Right Cause party.
Judging from my conversations with Just Russia leaders, the Communists and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, they also support probably not the entire modernization program but its considerable and highly important sections.
I am absolutely confident that Dmitry Medvedev will run for the second presidential term. On the other hand, I have no information confirming this. Regardless of who becomes president in 2012, there is no alternative to modernization. Key economic indicators, the state of society's political structure, society's overall state and its expectations of change all show that modernization has no alternative.
On the other hand, there can be numerous nuances regarding the pace of implementing the modernization program and its components, and that pace will depend on the next president, as well as the priority given to various clusters, vested interests and industrial groups.
Keyword Tags:
