The last term

[fridi]

The news about the Russian presidential election in March is that it actually won't be that important. Sure, Putin will easily win a 4th term, but it'll probably not be as easy as the previous ones, and it'll likely be his last. In order to make that transition term successful, the master of the Kremlin will have to renew his team and start reforms. Otherwise the people from his closest circle would soon become his enemies.

The vote will be the first signal in the battle for his successor, because, surprised as you may be, the Russian constitution prohibits Putin from running any more. So his most important task for the next 6 years will be to make sure the system he built won't collapse in a way that would plunge Russia into chaos.

Besides the long-time running veterans like nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovski and liberal Grigory Yavlinsky, this time there'll be new names on the ballot. One is that of businessman Boris Titov, defender of the rights of entrepreneurs, who doesn't seem likely to put a big challenge to the president (since he's part of Putin's administration). Another contender is the celebrity diva Ksenia Sobchak. She's calling herself the Russian Paris Hilton, daughter of former Saint-Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak, who used to be Putin's boss at the start of the latter's career. She's been very vocal in her criticism of the powers that be, but she's still considered a Kremlin implant. Of those there are many, they're supposedly meant to create the false impression that there's real competition in this election.

The only surprise is that Russia's oldest political party, the Communists won't be placing their boring leader Gennady Zyuganov on the ballot this time; instead, they'll bet on successful agrarian businessman Pavel Grudinin, a newbie in politics who's expected to have a bright future in the party. He's considered a new face, an unorthodox communist who's orientated toward market economy with state participation. But to get more votes, he'll have to go beyond the traditional framework of his ideology. It all depends on his ability to ride the wave of public opinion, and play populist politics well.

Another potential candidate, the leader of the anti-establishment opposition Alexey Navalny was conveniently barred from running on grounds that he's been convicted (in a very controversial sentence). A former member of Putin's administration, he's the president's most dangerous rival because he's radical in his approach. He's a typical Bolshevik, now modernized by the new era of information technology. And he's young enough (41), so even if he won't be able to run now (and he's calling for boycotting the election in result), he's expeced to make a real impact on the next election.

Despite the theoretical probability of constitutional change, most people who know Putin closely don't expect him to stay beyond the end of his next term (he'll be 71 then). Some even suspect he won't finish his term at all, seeing how exhausted he is from the job. His enthusiasm for providing the change that people expect seem to be spent at this point, and they expect a lot right now. If he's smart, he'll go while still near the peak of his form. While staying just to preserve balance is not a terrible option per se, it won't be enough for Making Russia Great Again. He won't have a new agenda, a new plan, just the same of the old stuff. Sure, he still has a lot of work to do if he wants to complete what he started. But transition seems imminent now more than ever.

Granted, most Russians still don't see a viable alternative to Putin for the time being. A fall'2017 survey by the Levada Center found that 64% of the respondents want Putin to be re-elected for another term. Meanwhile, 22% want him to be replaced by someone else within a couple of years. Much of the support for him is situational: because of the lack of another option. And that's not very good for Putin himself, either. In the absence of real competition and real elections for governors in Russia, no strong new figures have shown up lately, and that's a problem. Putin himself is mostly to blame for this. In trimming the lawn too low, he has basically stripped it of potential for growth in the future.

Both Putin's supporters and detractors agree on one thing: the economic situation in the country is not good. And no one knows how much lnoger the anger from this could be re-directed to the prime minister (and Putin's pawn) Dmitry Medvedev. People are not stupid. They're correctly diagnosing the problem, and they agree it needs treatment. The thing is, they're stuck with just one doctor. Let's not fool ourselves: Putin is largely to blame for Russia's economic predicament.

The economy is doubtlessly Kremlin's weak spot, and it could become a major problem during Putin's next term. His current one was marked by stagnation gradually devolving into all-out crisis. Although the 2-year recession has now ended and growth has moved close to 2% for 2017, the potential for recovery seems to be almost spent at this point. It's quite telling that earlier this month, the authorities announced that the National Prosperity Fund that was founded in 2008 has now been spent - it used to provide funds for selling oil and gas, attempting to guarantee people's pensions. Instead, it's now covering the budget deficit. Putin's promises from the beginning of this term that there would be income growth, improvement of the business climate and decrease in poverty, are still ringing hollow.

Although the international sanctions on Russia didn't affect its economy too much, the main problem is that serious reform should've been done a long time ago, but it still isn't. There's hope that Putin could venture into that territory in the last years of his political career. The deputy chief of the presidential administration Sergey Kiriyenko has been very active lately. He's a liberal technocrat, and before joining the team he used to head the state corporation Rosatom. Insiders claim he was put in his position to pave the ground for new reform. There are expectations that after this election, the cabinet will be changed and Medvedev will no longer be prime minister. If that happens, it'll be a sign that Putin is preparing for transition and he wants to leave a relatively stable state as a legacy.

Putin still hasn't announced his election platform, but he won't even need to. Pyotr Fedorov, a prominent TV showman recently said, "What do we need a program for when we're at war?" Indeed, it's a fact that the Russian society has become pretty militarized in recent years. But Putin himself seems wary of all the warfare, be it hot or cold or hybrid. Even his detractors admit Russia has enjoyed considerable success in Syria. But the idea of making peace with the US in the face of a common enemy, has failed. The US Congress has made it clear that the sanctions will remain there to stay, and even tighten.

Ukraine is another problem for Putin. The Minsk Accords regulating the conflict are practically moot, because no one respects them. The authority of Ukraininan president Petro Poroshenko is unstable, and though his rivals in the Kremlin are happy with the thought that he could easily be replaced, things could take unpredictable turns that would pose major headaches for Russia.

Putin's biggest problem of all, though, comes from within his own circle. It's full of oligarchs, cliques and various power-brokers who've gradually taken an increasingly confrontational stance against each other. The most recent evidence of this was the heavy 8-year sentence for former minister of the economy Alexey Ulyukayev for having taken bribes from Igor Sechin, the influential boss of Rosneft, and de facto shadow vice president.

Various observers are predicting that the influence of the grey cardinal Kiriyenko will only be growing during Putin's last presidential term. Putin understands that as soon as he becomes a lame duck, the elite will start looking for his successor. There'll be a free-for-all battle for power within the new power structure. And Putin leaving just like that won't be enough. He'll have to first re-tune the whole system in a way that won't cause big turmoil. And that will be a complicated task.

Things are about to get interesting in Russia very soon. Actually, as soon as this election is over.

Comments

[nairiporter]

So the emperor is not that almighty after all.

[halialkers]

"His last?"

HAHAHA, right. Russia, led by a man who signaled his leadership criteria by a genocidal massacre and regularly suppresses any and all opposition will see him leave power or care about minor technicalities. No, what'll happen is he'll get his lackeys to permit him to be indefinitely re-elected and people will herald this with the same quiet apathy that they do everything else he does.

If the Russian Federation under him displayed some greater adherence to rule of law I might take the prospect of his resignation seriously. It doesn't so I won't until I actually see it.

[mahnmut]

Oooh oh, I see a wager in the making!

[halialkers]

Yeah but how precisely would that wager be collected? :P

[mahnmut]

Does every wager have to be collected? Some wagers are just that, wagers. Don't be so mercantile, bud!

[abomvubuso]

Got scared suddenly? ;)

[fridi]

I'm trying to make a case here, and all I got from you was "Hahahaha. I don't believe you because - haha." Very well then.

[halialkers]

I would point to his little 'resignation' he did before with his little puppet as evidence but I've seen repeatedly how poorly pointing to his actions as proof of what he's likely to do in the future works and have learned from experience that evidence is less convincing than I like to think it is.

I mean it's not like he's already handled this issue once before or anything, and done exactly what I predict he's going to do now or anything. No, perish the thought.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/world/europe/putin-resigns-from-party-post.html

[fridi]

Right. Make whatever assumptions you feel like about people's mind process in general. I'm not bothered.

[halialkers]

There's literally nothing good that would come of the kind of response to which I think this deserves other than noting that I really, really regret our falling out, know that I deserved it, and have seen enough failure in trying to make up for it I see nothing to change it.

Dreamville and I at least managed to find a better way. I'd like to believe that's possible here but......as with Putin, so with this. Evidence does not indicate that it would or could.

Shorter version: I miss our friendship but I know it wrecked itself and that was my fault, so.....

[asthfghl]

Russia is not about the rule of law, never has been. It's about the rule of power, the powerful of the day, the powers-that-be, the power-brokers, whichever way you choose to call it. If you think Putin is the real power in Kremlin, then you don't know 1% of what you believe you know about Russia.

[halialkers]

Except he did precisely what I expected him to do once complete with rewriting the constitution in Russia. And he *did* sell Russia's economic future to China and stood down at least one major potential crisis before it got the chance to become one. He doesn't have to be the 'real' power in the Kremlin to be entirely capable of maintaining power and inventing new justifications to do so.

Russian Tsars had a retirement policy usually involving bullets or strangling aka 'Hemorrhoids' too. Nothing's really changed with that and I really don't think we're going to see Putin resign until he either dies naturally or has a convenient 'accident'. Autocrats almost never give up power peaceably.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/world/europe/putin-resigns-from-party-post.html

[asthfghl]

You keep posting that link to everyone, it's starting to look like spam at this point. I got it, you don't think Putin will quit after this term. The OP says he likely will. I guess we'll see in 6 years, or earlier. What I'm saying is, there are various cliques calling the shots in Russia, and Putin is the figurehead standing on top of it all. He does steer the process to some extent, but he can't act alone. If the powers that be decide he's spent, they'll get rid of him one way or another. I'm guessing it makes sense that he might be starting to plan for his successor the way his predecessor did, that's all.

All good things come to an end. Even presidencies as awesomely fabulous as Putin's. ;-)

[airiefairie]

Do you always have to maintain this confrontational tone with your interlocutors? "Remind me again", "hahaha", etc. Would it cost you too much to be respectful to the people you converse with, just for once? Or is this yet another of those occasions where you will jump in first, think only later, and then come back to apologise?

[fridi]

I don't think I need this sort of defense. It's a waste of breath, if anything; not to mention that it's leading us off-topic, and I suspect that's at least the secondary, if not the primary purpose of baiting tactics like the one that you mentioned.

Guy's making a point, as typically caustically (sic?) as they may be doing it. A simplistic point, granted, and one that (again, typically) misrepresents and misinterprets what we're talking about here, but still.

At no point have I mentioned the rule of law in this post, and for a good reason. But we've grown accustomed to these sorts of strawmen already, haven't we? So meh.

[halialkers]

Putin already faced resignation and running out of terms once. He did that by promoting a puppet and rewriting the constitution so he could stay in office more. Russian autocrats tend to either die in office naturally or be murdered by their successors and this pretended to be an accident of which the perps know nothing. Putin is not Yeltsin, or even Gorbachev.

He'll leave feet-first and the question is if he'll do it because of old age or because someone manages to put a bomb in his car and he has a closed-casket funeral.

[halialkers]

Given what Putin's done with this once before I consider the derision that the leopard will change his spots suddenly as opposed to finding a new faux resignation followed by ostentatious re-instatement entirely justified.

Sometimes I do when my conclusions are knee-jerk and my reactions likewise.

I don't consider this to be one of those times. The idea that he's actually going to resign or do anything different to what he did before with the last time this topic came up is about as naive as well....all the other times that foreigners assumed the Russian despots won't take the precise steps they've openly and blatantly done before.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/world/europe/putin-resigns-from-party-post.html

[airiefairie]

That is not what I am talking about here. I asked you a specific question.

[nairiporter]

What does the rule of law have to do with any of what has been said in this post?

[halialkers]

Well, presumably if it involves the Russian party chiefs removing an autocrat whose rule is sanctioned by murder and a faux veneer of legality like all his predecessors since Lenin and the impression these candidates are actual serious opponents who'd be allowed to be such, it's quite relevant.

The idea that he'll resign voluntarily and legally has no evidence to back it.

[nairiporter]

If the oligarchs who support him consider him a liability to their interests, damn sure they would ask him to go home and start painting pictures of puppies or something. Very politely, of course. The rule of law has no play in this story. This is Russia that we are talking about here, after all. I still don't know why you brought up the rule of law at all.

[abomvubuso]

Whence the dramatic entry? Trying to make amends through Burn(tm), eh?

[garote]

Retiring at the top of his game would be good for his historical legacy - but is he actually concerned with that sort of thing?

I get the impression that whatever he does, he cannot move too far away from the center of power, simply as a tactic to preserve his own life. I.e. as soon as he is seen as inessential, he will be better off dead, in the eyes of all the oligarchs he pushed around...

[fridi]

If he's as egocentric as he seems to be, then he might be pretty concerned with that sort of thing.

[johnny9fingers]

Depends on how old Uncle Vlad is feeling.

He could do a Churchill and come back in his eighties, or he could find a set of mechanisms which would keep the ship afloat and on course, and allow him to retire safely. He’s a bright lad, he may just manage it.

If he does, I’ll applaud him as more than just the most successful politician of the democratic era, but as a Russian Tsar who got out still breathing.

Until we die, of course. A good death and fine legacy is all any of us can hope for. Let’s see how he plays the endgame.