Once Again, Putin Spits on Democracy
Filed under: Russia
In a flurry of the repulsive, neo-Soviet, cloakroom-style political activity that has come to be the norm in today's Russia, the country's dictator Vladimir Putin has summarily purged his government, taking the "resignation" of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and replacing him with Viktor Zubkov, director of the State Financial Monitoring Service -- roughly analogous to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (except that it's probably at least as corrupt as the shady companies it purports to regulate, as are the Russian markets themselves). Zubkov has close ties to Putin that date back to their involvement with the government of the city of St. Petersburg under Anatoly Sobchak. Like Fradkov, he is a virtual unknown at the highest levels of Russian politics, essentially a glorified accountant drawn out of the ranks of the tax services and lacking firm connections to any of the warring "oligarch" clans that dominate Kremlin politics. In essence, then, Putin has replaced one cipher with another.
It's wildly ironic, of course, that Russia has just spent weeks railing against the alleged lack of qualifications of Europe's choice to head the IMF when in fact not only Fradkov and Zubkov but Putin himself were totally devoid of any credentials or qualifications to be prime minister when they received their appointments -- that is, other than slavish obedience to the "president."
As Interfax reported, Fradkov issued a convoluted, insane-sounding statement claiming that he wished to give Putin "full freedom in making decisions" in light of the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. The Russian newspaper Vedomosti, that country's version of the Wall Street Journal, reported earlier in the day that Sergei Ivanov, currently First Deputy Prime Minister, was about to be elevated to the position of Prime Minister. Ivanov is widely seen as the most likely successor to Putin, and it was conventional wisdom that Putin might seek to elevate him to the post of Prime Minister in order to give him a higher profile and a smoother pathway to power. The attitude gained special credence when, meeting with Fradkov to accept his resignation, Putin had stated: "We all have to think together how to build a structure of power so that it better corresponds to the pre-election period and prepares the country for the period after the presidential election in March."
In the event, however, it turned out that Putin felt no such compunctions. Putin's actions appear to send a clear message in advance of parliamentary elections due to occur in December that it is the presidency, not the prime ministry, that matters in Russia where power is concerned, and above all that it is he, Putin, who calls the tune the nation dances to. It is almost as if Putin specifically wanted to show that the conventional wisdom as to how he would announce his successor was wrong no matter what it was, that only his decisions matter, that nobody is safe except behind the veil of his personal "protection." In other words, Stalin would have been proud.
Russian analysts widely believe that Putin will only hand over his authority in a nominal manner next year, to achieve technical compliance with the constitutional edict, and will return in four years -- perhaps with a longer presidential term having been secured by constitutional amendment. Stepping away from the forefront may offer Putin the chance to affect an even more far-reaching crackdown on civil liberties without being personally blamed for it, and Ivanov is just about the perfect person to carry out such a strategy.
On the other hand, it's obviously risky to surrender the reigns of power to anyone for any period of time, much less to a strongman capable of carrying out such a crackdown. So it may be that Putin will opt for a mere figurehead, or he may ultimately choose not to leave power at all. That is not necessarily a bleak option for Russian democracy, since it would indicate Putin believes there is enough opposition to his rule that he cannot trust anyone else to resist it.
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