Published 8-03-2013, 09:04
Article by political scientist Andranik Migranyan on the main tasks confronting Vladimir Putin: "A Year After the Presidential Elections"
It would be more correct to tally the results of a year of V.V. Putin's presidency on 7 May, of course. But everyone is tempted to have his say on what the new old president has managed and not managed to get done since the elections of 4 March because this was a definite boundary, which was to a large extent to have shed light on the power configuration in Russia. Whereas prior to this we had a formal president and an informal leader of the country, the elections were designed to formalize him as the country's unquestioned leader.
I had the occasion to sum up the political outcome of the outgoing year at the end of December 2012 in Izvestiya, but there is reason today to say a little more about some points that were not reflected in that publication.
First, following the presidential elections, all politicians and analysts were excited by the question of what the configuration of power after V. Putin's inauguration and the formation of the new government would be. Some analysts had expectations that tandem would be preserved for some period and that the same model of governance of the country would be retained even after Putin's inauguration.
But it very soon became clear, as I wrote in the immediate aftermath of the March elections, that there were no grounds for continuance of the tandem. And whereas Medvedev needed support for his power in the shape of Putin's authority and political experience and the presence of Putin as a guarantor of elite consensus and consensus between society and power, after the inauguration the new president had no need of a mate as an equal participant in a tandem since Medvedev had simply not come to possess personal political resources even after four years of the presidency.
The split in the elites that had shown through in 2011 did not run deep and wide and did not become publicly formalized institutionally. The attempts via Open Government to convert Medvedev into some communication link between the system-based and anti-system opposition and Putin fell through since the opposition, particularly the anti-system opposition, did not know how to become a serious factor of policy, which could have kept Medvedev in the political space, if only for a while, as a potential alternative to Putin.
It thus immediately became obvious both to the elite and to society that both before his assumption of presidential office and after his departure from the presidency Medvedev was in a political respect totally dependent on the political resources of V. Putin.
If, in fact, in the foreseeable future the government is suddenly dismissed, this will happen not from some political considerations and not because Medvedev has become a serious factor of policy and is seen as an alternative to Putin in the event of some serious cataclysms in society but because it has failed to manage that with which it was tasked. That is, the government's future will depend only on the technical competence both of the premier and his team in ensuring the necessary economic growth under the difficult conditions of the modern world economic situation.
A second, very important, fact, to which attention should be drawn, is the fight, of unprecedented scale, against corruption, which was mounted in Russia immediately following V. Putin's return to the Kremlin. You get the sense that the authorities really are of a very serious mind to put all public officials and the businessmen linked with them through a cleansing process, as a result of which some, possibly, will find themselves incarcerated, and those that endure this ordeal will create a fundamentally new environment for life and business activity in the country.
V. Putin promised in the course of the election campaign to improve the business climate in the country and to move Russia from 120st to 20 th place in terms of business-friendly conditions. The unfolding campaign to combat corruption is pulling increasingly new public officials and businesses linked with them into this maelstrom, and you get the impression that there will be no untouchables in this fight. High-profile proceedings instituted against former and sitting government officials are familiar to everyone.
This fight unexpectedly acquired a new dimension against the background of the US Congress's adoption of the Magnitsky Act, in accordance with which Russian officials of various levels may be denied entry to the United States if there is information that they have in some way been involved in human rights violations. But the provisions of this act are so broad and vaguely worded that any officials of any level could fetch up in this position, and their assets in American banks could be frozen. This gave the unfolding fight against corruption a new twist. The Russian Duma is close to adopting a law on public officials having neither shares of stock nor deposits in foreign banks and providing details of their real property overseas. The United States' adoption of such a law and the threat of the adoption of similar acts by other Western countries will most likely prompt Russian government officials and businesses linked with them to bring back their assets or a substantial part of them to Russia.
Many commentators perceive this law as an attempt by Putin to bring the Russian elite under the control of the state. Some consider the authorities' policy involving the return of public officials' money an attempt by the authorities to nationalize the Russian elite. I believe that the steps by the authorities in this field are an inalienable part of the overall fight against corruption, which will help make Russian power more transparent. This is not, in my view, an attempt to nationalize the elite, it is, rather, the start of an agonizing process of the formation of a real national elite, it is an attempt to eradicate the desire of rich and powerful people to view their country as a space, and the people, as human material, from which wealth for themselves and for their near ones and dear ones should be derived, and this employed outside of Russia. This is a long-urgent step en route to the formation of a national elite responsible to the country, for which the homeland means a community of people united by a common history, culture, language, and traditions, for whose present and future they bear tremendous responsibility.
There is plenty of talk in political and expert circles here to the effect that if Putin moves to lift the sacrosanctity of public officials of the highest level, this could entail high-profile exposes of high-level persons, up to and including ministers and deputy premiers, involved in corruption schemes, with some of them being put inside, possibly. Would not this result in a serious split in elite circles and a weakening of the political base of the sitting president?
It has traditionally been believed that consolidated elites are to a considerable extent the support of power in such transitional societies as Russia. But we know in Putin's case that economic elites or, even less, corrupt public officials have right since the start of his presidency never been the support of his power. Putin already has experience of a very serious conflict with this power "support" . Oligarchs and regional leaders were regarded as the support of power in the Yeltsin period. And, pursuing a simultaneous and very successful conflict with these potent forces, Putin relied in the oughts on institutions of power that were still very weak at that time " the law-enforcement system and, of course, primarily the mass support of the citizenry. Under today's conditions the institutions of power are far more efficient and powerful for constituting Putin's support in this new conflict. And the part of the elite that could potentially oppose the fight against corruption pursued by the president cannot be compared in terms of its resources and possibilities with the possibilities and resources that the oligarchs and regional leaders possessed in the oughts.
This is why it seems to me that a consistent struggle of Putin and his team for the cleansing of Russian power of all-peremeating corruption could under the present conditions be more effective and successful and would hardly create real dangers for the sitting authority.
Some decline in the president's approval rating has been observed a year after the elections, which is explained not only by the fact that this is a customary phenomenon in all countries in the first year following elections but also by the fact that Russian society does, indeed, have big expectations of Putin in terms of the recovery of both the moral and the economic situation in the country. We have already observed that Putin's strength and the support of his power consist of the mass support of the citizenry. To prevent a further fall in the president's approval rating, graphic results of the activity of power: successes in the economy, in the fight against corruption, and in the purging of power and a recovery of the moral and political atmosphere in the country and society, have to be demonstrated to society. Since in the current situation, given the general unfavorable conditions of the world economy, it will be harder to achieve rapid and tangible successes in the economic sphere, the authorities may achieve tangible results in other fields, specifically in the anti-corruption fight, which, in turn, will create more favorable conditions for economic growth.
I would like in conclusion to dwell on one further very important problem. The arguments of both politicians and analysts of a radical-liberal persuasion that the present authorities have completely lost the support of the middle class "the most active element in society" are insufficiently justified and, at times, simply politically motivated. In actual fact, the situation regarding the middle class and its relations with power are more complicated. Truly, a small part of the middle class or, as they call themselves, the "creative class" is, evidently, completely lost to the present authorities, and the authorities may take their leave of this part without any particular regret since these are mainly radical intellectuals, and, sometimes, declasse element also, who on a limited scale are present in each modern industrially developed country. They are "Bolsheviks" of a kind, radical revolutionaries, who demand immediate and radical transformations always and everywhere. In a regular situation they do not pose a threat and are marginals but they could, given serious sociopolitical crises, play the part of "radicalizing" ferment, which contributes to an abrupt exacerbation of the political situation in any society. The authorities could hardly look for constructive interaction with this segment of the citizenry.
I believe that the task for the present authorities today is not only to preserve their traditional support. A number of sociologists maintain that those on the public payroll, the heartland, and small towns represent such for Putin. But this is not entirely true. The Putin administration has the necessary potential for a struggle for the backbone of the middle class: entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized business owners, and higher- and middle-class business managers, who, of course, who are disenchanted with the scale of the corruption and willfulness of public officials and law-enforcement bodies. But they are oriented by no means toward fighting the state and the authorities for this same struggle. They are sufficiently advanced to know that no one can without an efficient state create civilized conditions for life and the pursuit of business, this is why the authorities have every chance of contending for these people and earning their trust.
I believe that the efforts of the present authorities will in the foreseeable future be geared both to the formation of a national elite and restoration of the trust of the middle class, the professional classes, and the educated strata and to a restoration of the belief that the authorities really do intend to radically cleanse society and shape conditions whereby today's educated, progressive, independent business person has a comfortable life in his own country.
It is this that is today the main mission of the present authorities. Oil, gas, and other raw-material commodities constitute the basis of the budget and perform a sizable role in the shaping of the GDP. But it is not in this sphere that the fate of today's authorities and the question of the future of the sitting president will be decided. They will depend on whether it is possible to accomplish a radical turnabout in sentiments and to convince society that the authorities really are fighting to cleanse the political, moral, and psychological atmosphere in society and perceive the citizens as people deserving of respect, are receptive to the signals coming from society, and are prepared to respond fittingly to them.
Izvestia