воскресенье, 25 сентября 2011 г.

Once and future President

Financial Times

Twenty years after the Soviet collapse, with all the hopes that inspired that Russia might embrace democracy, it comes down to this. A Russian electorate consisting of one person has decided that Vladimir Putin will return as president next year.

Though Mr Putin’s popularity is not what it once was, there is little doubt this will come to pass. Russia’s tightly controlled political system will not allow any credible challenger to stand against him next March. Indeed, no such challenger has been given the chance to emerge in recent years. All the state’s resources will ensure that Mr Putin returns for what, under new electoral rules, could be 12 more years.

It is wrong to overstate the significance of this decision. Mr Putin has, after all, remained Russia’s paramount leader throughout the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev – which has been disappointingly short on achievements. His return to what is constitutionally the top job preserves at least one small shred of democracy, in that Mr Putin is still more popular than his protégé.

Yet a new Putin presidency is nonetheless a retrograde and risky step. Mr Medvedev has firmly embraced, at least verbally, the modernising political and economic agenda that Russia sorely needs. While he failed to build his own political team or support base – crucial omissions – he associated himself with advisers of like mind. A second term as president could have provided the opportunity finally to consolidate his position and start delivering reforms, especially if Mr Putin’s influence had begun to fade. The former president’s lingering authority has always stemmed in part from the possibility of his return.

Mr Putin has, by contrast, shown little appetite for modernising reforms, or much understanding of their urgency. His instincts are cautious, conservative. But the stability he promised in the first years of his presidency after the chaotic post-Soviet transition of the 1990s has turned, over time, into a straitjacket that is hampering Russia’s development.

If it is to return to the 5 per cent-plus annual growth it needs to catch up with the world’s advanced economies, Russia must allow more competition of ideas and policies, and reduce the state’s distorting role in the economy. It must tackle the corruption that is corroding the Russian system from within. It has to replace “managed” democracy with the institutions of genuine pluralism. Mr Putin may yet surprise the doubters by moving in this direction. But that would mean dismantling central elements of the very system he put in place in his previous eight-year presidency.

Mr Putin’s return will complicate Russia’s relations with the west, too. President Barack Obama’s “reset” brought results in part because Washington found it easier to deal with Mr Medvedev in the front-of-house role, even if Mr Putin was managing the back office. Germany’s Angela Merkel has similarly cultivated the current Russian president, but is on frostier terms with Mr Putin.

If Mr Putin does shrink from reform at home, however, he risks sowing the seeds of his own downfall. Stirrings of disillusionment are starting to show up in pollsters’ research. These may not be strong enough to prevent the Kremlin from managing the transition of power. But unaddressed they are likely to multiply.

A whole generation of Russians has reached voting age that was not born when communism collapsed. This generation gets its news not from Kremlin-controlled television but from an internet which, unlike China, Russia has never censored. Russia’s next president should take account of such shifts. Otherwise, like Arab counterparts, he could yet discover the power of social networks – and of the street.

среда, 14 сентября 2011 г.

Billionaire Condemns Party He Led as a Kremlin ‘Puppet’

By Ellen Barry and Andrew E. Kramer

MOSCOW — It has been a long time since a Russian billionaire attacked the political system. In the past, it has not ended well.  

On Thursday, Mikhail Prokhorov described Russia's party system as an elaborate sham orchestrated by a “puppet master” within the Kremlin walls. By the time he finished, Mr. Prokhorov seemed to have gambled with the most valuable asset a Russian businessman can have — good relations with the Kremlin and its most important occupant, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin. 

Mr. Prokhorov’s comments were prompted by the public meltdown of Right Cause, a pro-business party that was restarted this spring in hopes of winning the loyalty of disgruntled elites. The party had all the hallmarks of “pocket opposition” — Kremlin-sponsored projects that cast themselves as antigovernment but steer clear of challenging Russia’s leaders. 

Until now, Mr. Prokhorov had denied that Right Cause was operating in this way. But the party deteriorated into rancor this week, when party members voted to oust Mr. Prokhorov over his staffing decisions and leadership style. 

Mr. Prokhorov blamed micromanagement from the Kremlin for the debacle. He reserved his harshest words for Vladislav Y. Surkov, the deputy head of the presidential administration.
“I am not willing to take part in this farce,” he told an auditorium full of reporters, calling on his supporters to “leave this puppet Kremlin party.” 

“In this country there is a puppet master who long ago privatized the political system, who has long misinformed the Russian leadership about what is going on in the political system, puts pressure on the media, and tries to manipulate citizens’ opinions,” he said. “This puppet master is named Vladislav Surkov.”
There are precedents for this kind of confrontation. Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, an oil tycoon who was financing a true opposition party, is serving a 13-year sentence for embezzlement. Vladimir A. Gusinsky and Boris A. Berezovsky, whose media outlets criticized the government, fled the country to avoid prosecution.