Medvedev seen as potential spoiler to Putin

Medvedev seen as potential spoiler to Putin
By Charles Clover in Moscow
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: May 1 2009 15:45 | Last updated: May 1 2009 17:12
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0e7c4672-363d-11de-af40-00144feabdc0.html


Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s growing political stature is increasing the possibility that he will stand for re-election in 2012 in spite of assumptions that those polls would see Vladimir Putin’s return, according to a top Kremlin adviser.

Mr Medvedev and Mr Putin, who is now prime minister, will have to decide within the next year which of them will run for president in 2012, Gleb Pavlovsky, a political consultant and adviser to the president, told the Financial Times.

Many observers have assumed that Mr Medvedev is simply a caretaker president, who will stay in power until Mr Putin, who was constitutionally barred from the third presidential term in 2008, wants the job back.

But Mr Pavlovsky, a consummate Kremlin insider who advised both Mr Putin and Boris Yeltsin, his predecessor, said that exactly who stands for president in 2012 will depend on who emerges best from the economic crisis – and that as Mr Medvedev’s stature has grown, so has his clout to decide his own political destiny.

“Neither Putin nor Medvedev can put the other for a fait accompli,” said Mr Pavlovksy .“Putin can’t tell Medvedev ‘Hey look, stand aside, I’m going to be the candidate’.”

“I think that if Medvedev’s presidency is successful, Putin will not try to move him out … If the strengthening of Medvedev’s stature continues, as it is going now, then Putin will not enter his candidacy.”

Mr Pavlovsky’s comments appear intended to float the idea of a second term for Mr Medvedev term, and put the ball in Mr Putin’s court.

He said that both men know that they cannot run against each other in 2012, as “this would be the signs not just of a split, [but] an open confrontation” between the two, he said.

“I don’t think that either will allow this to happen. Someone will have to stand aside, and this is why it is very important for Medvedev to show results, to prove his worthiness to seek a second term.”

Mr Pavlovsky added that the decision, which the two men must reach together, needed to be made by the autumn of 2010 at the latest, in order to avoid signs of a disagreement and allow for the preparation of a proper election campaign.

The 2012 elections will be the first time that a political transition has taken place without a single dominant political figure, combining constitutional power with informal influence and able to ensure his will is implemented.

Both Mr Yeltsin, who chose Mr Putin as his successor, and then Mr Putin himself, who hand-picked Mr Medvedev to succeed him in 2008, have been in a position to choose their successor. In 2012, by contrast, the candidate will have to be determined by consensus between the two men, and the uncertainty surrounding the transition could give rise to political rivalry, as different elite groups throw their weight behind the candidates.

Most observers assume that the real influence in Russia today still stands with Mr Putin, to whom most high-ranking bureaucrats owe their jobs and thus their loyalty. His approval rating is still higher than Mr Medvedev’s, fluctuating between 60-80 per cent, in spite of the economic crisis that has seen unemployment hit 10 per cent in March. But Mr Medvedev’s authority has grown, and he wields the constitutional authority – even to dismiss Mr Putin, though few believe it would ever come to that.

“There is no schism,” said Mr Pavlovsky. “People expected one, but it hasn’t happened ... A serious split would be impossible to hide.”

Nonetheless, both men have demonstrated markedly different styles of governing. Mr Medvedev has emerged as a more liberal figure, giving his first domestic newspaper interview to the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Mr Putin, on the other hand, has steered a more hardline path, allying himself with the so-called “siloviki”, a clique of former spies and security men.


Kremlin’s poll-winning specialist:

Gleb Pavlovsky, a former political dissident who was jailed by Soviet authorities in the 1980s, rose to prominence working for the Kremlin in the 1990s, writes Charles Clover in Moscow.

Known for his genius at the black arts of winning elections in Russia, Mr Pavlovsky is notorious for anything-goes use of “political technology”, Russian shorthand for western-style political communications techniques mixed with a uniquely authoritarian twist.

In the 1996 presidential election, when Boris Yeltsin was threatened with defeat by the Communists’ Gennady Zyuganov, Mr Pavlovsky helped run what he called “a thermonuclear campaign” and Yeltsin won.

In 1999, when Yeltsin was ailing, Mr Pavlovsky helped to run “Project Successor” , which led to Vladimir Putin’s presidency.

Since overseeing the transfer of office from Mr Putin to Dmitry Medvedev last year, Mr Pavlovsky has rarely been in the limelight but is always busy behind the scenes.