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A Month on the Throne
Last week marked Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s first month in office. Vlast analytical weekly’s Dmitry Kamyshev studied his early presidency.
Presidential Business
A look at his intensive and varied work schedule dispels all doubts that Dmitry Medvedev is a full-fledged president. He has been signing decrees and laws, appointing and firing federal and regional officials, traveling the Russian provinces, making foreign trips, and meeting with ministers, governors and public leaders. That is to say that he is doing everything Vladimir Putin did before him.
It is to Medvedev’s credit that there is much in common between his debut strategy and that of his predecessor. Both were quick to appoint a prime minister, for example. Putin nominated Mikhail Kasyanov in the State Duma three days after his 2000 inauguration, and Medvedev nominated Putin the same day he assumed office. Changes in the government were minor in both cases. Medvedev replaced nine members of the cabinet, Putin replaced seven. The current president, like the last one, made his first trip outside Moscow to the Russian provinces. Medvedev visited Ivanovo, Kostroma and Yaroslavl Regions. On May 8, 2000, Putin visited Kursk. Both leaders made their first trip abroad to CIS countries. Medvedev visited Kazakhstan, Putin visited Uzbekistan.
Both the second and third presidents of Russia very cautiously made changes in the personnel of the enforcement agencies in the first month in office. Medvedev has been more audacious than Putin in this respect. Putin replaced director of the Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey Lebedev and prosecutor general Vladimir Ustinov in May 2000. Medvedev has moved Nikolay Patrushev from head of the FSB to Secretary of the Security Council, appointed Yury Bortnikov to replace him at the FSB and replaced Chief of the General Staff Yury Baluevsky with Nikolay Makarov.
At the same time, Medvedev has shown distinctly individual traits in his work as well. The main focus for Putin in the first weeks of his term in 20000 was the formation of a vertical of power, which he began with the creation of federal districts, reform of the Federation Council and the introduction of federal institutions to intervene in activities in the regions. Medvedev has been busy keeping the biggest of his campaign promises, which have an entirely different ideological bent. In his first days in office, he lived up to the title of “social candidate,” which the United Russia bestowed on him during the election campaign. His first decrees, signed on May 7, immediately after his inauguration, were continuations of his work on the national projects when he was first deputy prime minister. He ordered World War II veterans to be guaranteed housing for two years, created the Housing Construction Development Cooperation Fund and ordered the government to create a network of federal universities. That was followed by the creation of the Order of Parental Glory and a decree on social support for caregivers to the non–able-bodied.
At the same time, Medvedev made it clear that he does not want to be only a “social” president and he is ready to begin promised reforms that observers found quite liberal. The main reforms, judging from Medvedev’s statements, will be removing administrative barriers to small business, fighting corruption and improving the judicial system. The president held special meetings on those topics in the first two weeks of his presidency. At the beginning of this month, he checked in on the ecological front as well, discussing the ecological and energy efficiency of the economy with specialists.
Finally, part of Medvedev’s presidential heritage will be the celebration of the string of victories Russia experienced in a variety of competitions at the beginning of his term. He received the members of Zenith and the national hockey team at the Kremlin after they won the UEFA Cup and the world championship, and he called Dima Bilan to congratulate him on wining the Eurovision song contest.
Unfinished Business
Appearances can be deceiving, however, and the content of Medvedev’s actions did not always look as independent as the form. That was especially true of personnel changes, in which the new president had extremely little freedom of choice. The number of Medvedev’s own advisors is extremely small, since most of those in leadership positions in the Kremlin and in the government are the same people who were there under Putin.
External influence can be seen in other appoints s well. The new chief of the General Staff is considered a nominee of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who made commander of the Siberian Military District Makarov his deputy and commander of the Russian Army as soon as he was appointed in 2007. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who is well known for enjoying Putin’s favor, has joined the presidium of the State Council. Even Medvedev’s first gubernatorial appointment could more rightly be called Kozak’s. Minister of Regional Development Dmitry Kozak pressed for Stavropol Territory governor Alexander Chernogorov while Kozak was still presidential representative in the Southern Federal District. Chernogorov’s successor Valery Gaevsky was Kozak’s deputy both as presidential representative and as minister.
There have been some blank spots on his work schedule too. Unlike Putin’s first month in 2000, Medvedev has yet to participate in any prestige activities like receiving credentials from foreign ambassadors or handing out state awards. The new head of state has not made any significant steps in regional policy either (aside from the appointment of the governor of Stavropol). That is in sharp contrast to Putin’s first month, when he halted dozens of regional laws that contradicted federal legislation and personally introduced his representatives in the federal districts to the heads of the subjects of the federation. In May 2008, chief of the presidential executive staff Sergey Naryshkin introduced the two new presidential representatives. Medvedev’s party activism is less than stellar as well. Putin met with all the faction leaders in the State Duma before the confirmation of his prime minister in 2000 and attended the Unity Party congress. Medvedev has not met with party leaders, aside from Just Russia leader Sergey Mironov, who visited the president in his capacity of speaker of the Federation Council. He sent Naryshkin to the United Russia congress.
The new prime minister is also feeling the president’s shortcomings. Putin does not openly encroach on the president’s business, sticking rather to finance, industry and agriculture (and meeting the hockey team after Medvedev). But after his visit to France, where he had a lengthy talk with President Nicolas Sarkozy, the Western press trumpeted in a single voice that he had received a presidential reception. And the appointment of former ambassador to the United States Yury Ushakov deputy chief of the government staff immediately after that reminded many experts of the creation of an alternative foreign ministry, given the antipathy between Ushakov and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The Presidential Image
The latest public opinion poll also shows that Medvedev has yet to turn into a full president. The research of the Levada Center was most indicative. It showed that a growing number of Russians who assume that, since the presidential election, power has remained in Putin’s hands. The number of those who believe that Medvedev acts “under the control of Putin and his close associates” has also grown significantly. Seventy-six percent of respondents think that Medvedev “definitely” or “most likely” will be able to fulfill his obligations as president, but a significant number of them think that those obligations include “acting under the control of Putin.”
Even more interesting is a poll by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion that showed 14 percent of Russians were unaware that the head of state is now Medvedev. Seventeen percent did not know that Putin had been appointed prime minister, however. Comparing the two polls, the natural conclusion is that the 15 percent of respondents who could not name the prime minister thought Putin is still president. It is also notable that public opinion about the division of power was formed not because of the federal television channels, but in spite of them. It can be seen from monitoring their news broadcasts that they have done all they could to acquaint Russians with the new power structure. In the month since his inauguration, Medvedev has exceeded Putin in total news coverage by almost two hours. Rossiya, the main state television channel has done more than all the others to create a proper picture of life for the country’s people. On it, Medvedev is 2 hours and 20 minutes ahead of Putin in airtime. The current president had more time than the prime minister on Channel One and NTV as well. It can be claimed in this case that, although the current president came out ahead numerically, but the former president won with his skill, for the deciding role in the viewers’ perception of the division of power seems to have been not the length of the coverage of the activities of the two leaders, but their style. In that aspect, Putin does not lag behind his successor.
First, the prime minister’s visits and working meetings were covered on television in practically the same format as when he was president. This was encouraged when many of the journalists on the Kremlin beat, who are among the country’s most authoritative, transferred to government headquarters. That coverage invariably consisted of a colorful picture (Putin listening to a minister’s report, visiting a pig farm, instructing party members, meeting foreign leaders, etc.) and imposing sound bite (Putin making a programmatic statement).
Second, the prime minister’s work schedule was very carefully arranged from the point of view of PR. The government presidium now meets on Mondays. That was the day that Putin held meetings with members of the government when he was president, at which decisions were made on the country’s most important problems, just as they are now at the presidium meetings. A television viewer, turning on the television at the usual time, still sees Putin listening to ministers’ reports and giving them instructions. The fact that he is no longer doing that in the capacity of president is left off camera.
The same can be said of Putin’s personal meetings. Unlike previous prime ministers, whose meetings with subordinates were conducted without the press being present, Putin allows reporters at them and so those meetings have been elevated almost to a presidential level. Many of those meetings take place on weekends, when there is little political news. Therefore, the hardworking prime minister is often seen more on television on weekends then the president is. For example, on May 17, when Putin met with Transportation Minister Igor Levitin, and on May 31, when he met with Minister of Natural Resources Yury Trutnev and Communications Minister Igor Shchegolev. Medvedev had no official events scheduled on those days.
Dmitry Kamyshev
All the Article in Russian as of June 09, 2008
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