Putin's political future is being speculated on openly, writes CHARLES CLOVERin Moscow
ANALYSTS AND politicians in Russia are increasingly frantic about the political fallout from the country’s six-month economic crisis, judging by the number of doomsday scenarios aired recently in the press and in speeches.
Warnings of social unrest, usually limited to small opposition newspapers and liberal commentators, are now aired in the mainstream media – as are comments on the regime of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin itself is making the most pessimistic noises. A key adviser wrote last week that the economic crisis threatened to unseat the two leaders, whom, he suggested, might be swept away in an uprising financed by the oligarchs.
“The transition of the [economic] crisis into the political arena has already begun happening,” Gleb Pavlovsky wrote in the popular Moskovski Komsomolets tabloid.
He warned of a “remake” of the 1991 street protests that helped bring down the Soviet Union and the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. “The sources of social protest should be sought in the corridors of power,” Pavlovsky wrote.
His and other gloomy predictions have left some analysts scratching their heads. Alexei Levinson, at the Levada Centre, a research company, said: “Do I see the potential for serious unrest? It is very dangerous to say no, because so many people are saying publicly that this is happening . . . But I simply don’t see it.”
However, it was “just as true that the number of people saying they see this potential has shot up”, he added. “So that must be significant. It shows that the relationship to the authorities is changing.”
Speculation has surrounded the relationship between president and prime minister since Putin, head of state since 2000, stepped aside for Medvedev last year. It is widely believed that Putin, who was barred from a third consecutive presidential term by the constitution, plans to return to the Kremlin.
That the prime minister’s political future is speculated on openly is, for some politicians, a watershed in Russia’s political life.
“It is very conspiratorial,” said Vladimir Milov, former deputy energy minister and a leader of the opposition group Solidarnost.
“But, for the first time, they are putting the question that perhaps Putin should go, to prevent him from pulling everyone else to the bottom.”
Other observers say the public scaremongering is an attempt by the Kremlin to unite an increasingly divided ruling class.
Evgeny Gontmakher, an analyst at a think tank that advises Medvedev, said Pavlovsky’s warnings were, in fact, “an attempt to consolidate the elite”.
Russia’s economic crisis, spurred by the global credit crunch and the falling price of oil, its main export, has created economic dislocation not seen since 1998.
More than six million Russians are unemployed, the rouble has lost a third of its value in the past six months, and forecasts for a 2.2 per cent drop in this year’s gross domestic product look optimistic. The crisis has created intense competition among government factions and business groups over economic policy.
Liberals, led by finance minister Alexei Kudrin, have been battling against conservatives who want Russia to impose currency controls. For several weeks Kudrin seemed to be in a precarious position, but late last month Putin came down on his side and ruled out a return to controls.
Many political analysts say the rifts in the cabinet will put additional strain on the relationship between Putin and Medvedev, as each struggles to avoid the blame for the crisis and is pulled in several directions at once by competing factions.
The two are close friends who started their political careers together in St Petersburg. But those who are forecasting trouble point to recent attacks that Medvedev has made on the government’s handling of the economy.
There was speculation last month that Medvedev would become leader of Fair Russia, a party that enjoys Kremlin approval but competes with Putin’s United Russia in elections.
Fair Russia’s chairman, Sergei Mironov, speaker of the upper house of parliament, denies that Medvedev is to take over the party, though he says the offer is open.
Last week Medvedev called on the government to look into electoral violations by United Russia in regional elections on March 1st.
Masha Lipman of the Carnegie Moscow Centre think tank said Medvedev was still the junior partner in the relationship and lacked the power base to contemplate taking Putin on, even if he wanted to. – (Financial Times service)