The internal power struggles in the Kremlin are still surprisingly hard to understand and predict. President Dmitry Medvedev was Vladimir Putin’s handpicked successor (Putin was constitutionally prevented from seeking a third consecutive term in office in 2008). At the time, many outside analysts and experts believed Medvedev would simply implement Putin’s desired policies and actions. In 2012, either President Medvedev or Prime Minister Putin can run for president. But who will? Who is really in charge in Russia?
When asked about who will wield power after President Medvedev’s term expires, Mr. Putin recently said, “Both President Medvedev and I will decide what we will do – both he and I – depending on the results of our work. As for him personally, you should ask him, but I repeat, I have known him for a long time and I know that he is a very decent man and he will look at his political future proceeding from the interest of the country and the results of our joint efforts. Time will tell.”
Putin’s public comments “have reinforced expectations that he will return as president (for two six-year terms)” in 2012. According to a recent poll, “a third of Russians feel that Mr. Putin is still in charge; only 12% believe that Mr. Medvedev has supreme power.” But others believe Medvedev is emerging from Putin’s shadow.
Ethan Burger, adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and Mary Holland, director of the graduate legal skills program at New York University School of Law, wrote in Foreign Policy in March that sooner or later, Putin “will become the Russian financial crash’s most prominent victim.” Medvedev has distanced himself from his mentor and “the time is close when Medvedev is likely to offer Putin a deal he can’t refuse. This true power shift, unlike the symbolic one last May, might be Russia’s best hope to navigate peacefully its deepening economic and political crisis.”
Jason Corcoran, a journalist with the Guardian, wrote last week that “a year after his arrival, measures from the Russian president suggest a power shift in the Kremlin, and an era of glasnost-lite.” But despite signs that “the balance of power could be tipping more to the liberal faction…nobody knows how far this glasnost-lite will go. It may just be for the timeline of the crisis or until his mentor Putin decides Medvedev’s usefulness has expired.”
Only time will tell…
Photo from Reuters.
