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talkpoliticsYour regular Russian update now! There are elections coming up in Russia as well, and a new type of oligarch, Mikhail Prokhorov is entering Russian politics with a bang. So what's so different about him? Well, hah, first of all he's tall. Very very tall. He's so tall that there's a joke that Medvedev would probably run him for prime minister just to annoy Putin. :)
Joke aside, after Prokhorov demonstrated that he's entering politics and was elected leader of one of the main Russian parties (Pravoe Delo, which means the Right Cause), the question is now how different he is exactly. He used some populist soundbites on his inauguration speech, like "Russia is ruled as an empire where only the president's power is functioning. The Russians need a new project". Of course he avoided attacking Putin directly but he seems to have some criticism for the current regime which was undoubtedly crafted by Putin: heavy federal control, centralization, hand-picking of the mayors of Moscow and St.Petersburg and the governors of the regions, limiting the influence of the parties, etc. So far Prokhorov is showing that he's aiming at Putin's chair on the elections in autumn.
So that's why the next logical comparison is with Mikhail Khodorkovsky who's now in jail. Prokhorov has said that he wants to see him released, which is telling. Just like Prokhorov now, Khodorkovsky used to carry the title of "one of Russia's richest men" (Forbes actually put him at place 1 back in 2009). And last year Prokhorov had 19 billion dollars which placed him 3rd. His business? Iron, gold, insurance, media and banks.
He's probably very aware of the enormous risks he's taking when entering Russian politics because once you get there, you can fall very abruptly if you cross the way of the wrong people. In this sense Prokhorov's decision firstly looks very suicidal, because Khodorkovsky was instantly put on the gallows when he demonstrated his political aspirations. Ironically, the local tax administration in Krasnoyarsk where Prokhorov is registered has already started a court case against him claiming 2 billion rubles. But this doesn't seem to bother him at all. He says that "Entrepreneurship is similar to politics - it's a fight for survival, but at a different level". We'll see where this goes, and exactly when and how Putin reacts, if at all. This will tell us all we need to know about whether this new "project" is genuine or is actually astroturf as it seems now.
Maybe one of the reasons why he's so unperturbed is the supposed support that he got from Kremlin. The Kommersant newspaper revealed that Yeltsin's former protege Alexander Voloshin, with Medvedev's support, had probed the conditions for a new project that's very similar to what happened with the Pravoe Delo party.
The way Prokhorov took over Russia's newest liberal party which has effectively united the remnants of the previous center-right parties in Russia, looked more like a business deal rather than politics. In May the oligarch said he wanted to head the party, and just after a month a very strange farce was played out in Moscow. On a 3 hour long summit the party members voted a new code of rules and gave the businessman unlimited powers to hire and fire anybody from the central and regional structures of the party, to approve or reject new members. And he wasn't even a member of their party yet! But then they gave him a membership card and in an hour he was "elected" their leader. He had even an inauguration speech prepared handy, which he delivered to standing applause. Wow.
In Russian politics, words like "party", "opposition" and "parliament" are hollow wrappings devoid of any content. Say, some party exists at the brink of extinction, suddenly some billionaire comes and he becomes their leader. In a few weeks, the party has regional structures all across the country. You thought a party leader should "earn" their post through long hard work and in a fair competition with their equals? Nah. Not in Russia. And that's supposed to be the "democratic, liberal alternative" to Putin's model. Good luck with that.
Seems like the delegates of the Pravoe Delo party were lured by the glitter of coin. After all Prokhorov promised a 100 million dollar injection for their election campaign for parliament, where he's hoping they'll win 2nd place right after the giant United Russia party of Putin/Medvedev. But if he has really bought this party, it was because at the time it was being offered on the market already. It was Kremlin's puppet project right from the start. They didn't even try to hide that. Among the proposed candidates for party leaders were the finance minister Alexey Kudrin and even vice premier minister Igor Shuvalov, but eventually they refused. Prokhorov at least comes with his money, which couldn't be said about many of the now ruling politicians.
With all his business history he's not exactly an independent player. The Russians may hate their political class (with the exception of Putin, they're even ready to get naked for him), but there's one thing they hate even more, and that's oligarachs. The majority of Russians believe Yeltsin almost sold their country out to oligarchs, and Putin saved them by cutting the greedy wrists of said oligarchs and holding them on a short leash ever since.
The scandals around Prokhorov are numerous. He took over the nickel giant Norilsk-Nickel in a very shady way, his finance speculations in the 90s come along with the spicy details about the endless posh parties where he appears with supermodels and luxurious prostitutes. He was even arrested in France on charges of procuring, which was of course later dropped. If Kremlin really wants to crush him they'd do it within a heartbeat. The fact that this is not happening is telling. The TVs are killing each other to take interviews with him, something all other opposition leaders could only dream of. It reminds of the artificial hype that Yeltsin was creating for Putin at the time he was introducing the totally unknown former KGB agent as his successor.
It's naive to think that Prokhorov is unrelated to the powers-that-be. Putin even recently advertised his "e-automobile", some fancy project the oligarch has been pushing through the market. And Arkady Dvorkovich, who's Medvedev's economic advisor, seems to be charmed by Prokhorov's ideas, which is evident from his regular tweets.
So the question after all is not if this is an independent move from a bold visionary or a well planned stunt by a ruling caste in need of fresh new faces who'd be used to push through unpopular but very necessary reforms in the near future. The real question is where's Prokhorov's place in the whole back stage fight between Medvedev and Putin, and what the oligarch himself is going to get out of the whole deal. He is famous for meticulously planning all his actions long in advance. From the purchase of the NBA team New Jersey Nets, to the "casual" and "spontaneous" meetings with workers. On the party summit he didn't look at his notes even once while he was giving his long inauguration speech. He works for 12 hours a day, and goes sporting for 2. He's young, extremely ambitious and fabulously rich and he obviously has leadership skills. But would that help him look over and beyond the dwarfish shoulders of the giants who are calling the shots in Russian politics? That's another question. I'm thinking that no matter how tall he is, he'd be cut low the moment he shows any signs of independent thinking.
Joke aside, after Prokhorov demonstrated that he's entering politics and was elected leader of one of the main Russian parties (Pravoe Delo, which means the Right Cause), the question is now how different he is exactly. He used some populist soundbites on his inauguration speech, like "Russia is ruled as an empire where only the president's power is functioning. The Russians need a new project". Of course he avoided attacking Putin directly but he seems to have some criticism for the current regime which was undoubtedly crafted by Putin: heavy federal control, centralization, hand-picking of the mayors of Moscow and St.Petersburg and the governors of the regions, limiting the influence of the parties, etc. So far Prokhorov is showing that he's aiming at Putin's chair on the elections in autumn.
So that's why the next logical comparison is with Mikhail Khodorkovsky who's now in jail. Prokhorov has said that he wants to see him released, which is telling. Just like Prokhorov now, Khodorkovsky used to carry the title of "one of Russia's richest men" (Forbes actually put him at place 1 back in 2009). And last year Prokhorov had 19 billion dollars which placed him 3rd. His business? Iron, gold, insurance, media and banks.
He's probably very aware of the enormous risks he's taking when entering Russian politics because once you get there, you can fall very abruptly if you cross the way of the wrong people. In this sense Prokhorov's decision firstly looks very suicidal, because Khodorkovsky was instantly put on the gallows when he demonstrated his political aspirations. Ironically, the local tax administration in Krasnoyarsk where Prokhorov is registered has already started a court case against him claiming 2 billion rubles. But this doesn't seem to bother him at all. He says that "Entrepreneurship is similar to politics - it's a fight for survival, but at a different level". We'll see where this goes, and exactly when and how Putin reacts, if at all. This will tell us all we need to know about whether this new "project" is genuine or is actually astroturf as it seems now.
Maybe one of the reasons why he's so unperturbed is the supposed support that he got from Kremlin. The Kommersant newspaper revealed that Yeltsin's former protege Alexander Voloshin, with Medvedev's support, had probed the conditions for a new project that's very similar to what happened with the Pravoe Delo party.
The way Prokhorov took over Russia's newest liberal party which has effectively united the remnants of the previous center-right parties in Russia, looked more like a business deal rather than politics. In May the oligarch said he wanted to head the party, and just after a month a very strange farce was played out in Moscow. On a 3 hour long summit the party members voted a new code of rules and gave the businessman unlimited powers to hire and fire anybody from the central and regional structures of the party, to approve or reject new members. And he wasn't even a member of their party yet! But then they gave him a membership card and in an hour he was "elected" their leader. He had even an inauguration speech prepared handy, which he delivered to standing applause. Wow.
In Russian politics, words like "party", "opposition" and "parliament" are hollow wrappings devoid of any content. Say, some party exists at the brink of extinction, suddenly some billionaire comes and he becomes their leader. In a few weeks, the party has regional structures all across the country. You thought a party leader should "earn" their post through long hard work and in a fair competition with their equals? Nah. Not in Russia. And that's supposed to be the "democratic, liberal alternative" to Putin's model. Good luck with that.
Seems like the delegates of the Pravoe Delo party were lured by the glitter of coin. After all Prokhorov promised a 100 million dollar injection for their election campaign for parliament, where he's hoping they'll win 2nd place right after the giant United Russia party of Putin/Medvedev. But if he has really bought this party, it was because at the time it was being offered on the market already. It was Kremlin's puppet project right from the start. They didn't even try to hide that. Among the proposed candidates for party leaders were the finance minister Alexey Kudrin and even vice premier minister Igor Shuvalov, but eventually they refused. Prokhorov at least comes with his money, which couldn't be said about many of the now ruling politicians.
With all his business history he's not exactly an independent player. The Russians may hate their political class (with the exception of Putin, they're even ready to get naked for him), but there's one thing they hate even more, and that's oligarachs. The majority of Russians believe Yeltsin almost sold their country out to oligarchs, and Putin saved them by cutting the greedy wrists of said oligarchs and holding them on a short leash ever since.
The scandals around Prokhorov are numerous. He took over the nickel giant Norilsk-Nickel in a very shady way, his finance speculations in the 90s come along with the spicy details about the endless posh parties where he appears with supermodels and luxurious prostitutes. He was even arrested in France on charges of procuring, which was of course later dropped. If Kremlin really wants to crush him they'd do it within a heartbeat. The fact that this is not happening is telling. The TVs are killing each other to take interviews with him, something all other opposition leaders could only dream of. It reminds of the artificial hype that Yeltsin was creating for Putin at the time he was introducing the totally unknown former KGB agent as his successor.
It's naive to think that Prokhorov is unrelated to the powers-that-be. Putin even recently advertised his "e-automobile", some fancy project the oligarch has been pushing through the market. And Arkady Dvorkovich, who's Medvedev's economic advisor, seems to be charmed by Prokhorov's ideas, which is evident from his regular tweets.
So the question after all is not if this is an independent move from a bold visionary or a well planned stunt by a ruling caste in need of fresh new faces who'd be used to push through unpopular but very necessary reforms in the near future. The real question is where's Prokhorov's place in the whole back stage fight between Medvedev and Putin, and what the oligarch himself is going to get out of the whole deal. He is famous for meticulously planning all his actions long in advance. From the purchase of the NBA team New Jersey Nets, to the "casual" and "spontaneous" meetings with workers. On the party summit he didn't look at his notes even once while he was giving his long inauguration speech. He works for 12 hours a day, and goes sporting for 2. He's young, extremely ambitious and fabulously rich and he obviously has leadership skills. But would that help him look over and beyond the dwarfish shoulders of the giants who are calling the shots in Russian politics? That's another question. I'm thinking that no matter how tall he is, he'd be cut low the moment he shows any signs of independent thinking.
