WHAT IS PUTIN PLANNING?

It has been an eventful start to the autumn in Russian politics. First, the date was set for the parliamentary elections, then the government resigned and a new prime minister was chosen. While the main excitement in electing the fifth State Duma is still to come (this will be when the parties have confirmed their election lists and started to campaign), the fuss about the new head of the Russian Cabinet of Ministers has already calmed down slightly. Everyone is waiting to see what will happen next, as it is obvious that the reshuffle in the upper echelons of Russian power is just the beginning.

Unprofessionalism and corruption

On 14 September Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree appointing Viktor Zubkov, since 2004 head of the Russian Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring), chairman of the government. He is the ninth prime minister in the history of modern Russia, that is, since 1992. An hour before the presidential decree the State Duma had approved Zubkov's appointment with 381 votes in favour. Only 47 parliamentarians from the Communist Party faction did not support the new prime minister, while eight from the Rodina (Motherland) People's Patriotic Union abstained from voting. 

The deputies had the chance to get to know Zubkov when he met representatives of each Duma faction separately and then spoke before all the deputies. When he was still prime minister designate (not that anyone doubted that he would be chosen), he promised that the work of the new government would follow the "strategic guidance in the president's addresses". Zubkov is intending to concentrate efforts on reviving "traditionally powerful" sectors in Russia - aircraft manufacture and ship-building - and on developing the military-industrial complex. The new prime minister favours maintaining the country's current macroeconomic policy, envisages the need to reduce taxes in future, and also thinks that the battle against two potentially disastrous evils should be Russia's priority. He is not talking about "fools and roads" - this proverb about the nation's enemies has rather lost currency. Zubkov is convinced that "unprofessionalism and corruption can ruin Russia" - this is the country's main misfortune and is causing the most suffering. This is why the premier's proposal to adopt a law on corruption and create a national anti-corruption committee will be supported unconditionally. Zubkov also agreed with the criticism of a number of ministries and made it plain that there will be personnel changes in the government.

No-one guessed

The last time a Russian government resigned was on 24 February 2004 when, also on the eve of presidential elections, Putin dismissed Mikhail Kasyanov's cabinet. On 9 March 2004 Mikhail Fradkov was appointed chairman of the government. The change in the head of the cabinet did not cause such a furore at the time, as it was clear that Putin himself would remain president. Now no-one knows who will be the new Kremlin boss and this is troubling everyone. Many experts think that whoever heads the Russian Federation government on the eve of presidential elections must subsequently become Putin's "successor". So as soon as Fradkov's dismissal became known, not only Russia, but the whole world froze in expectation.

Everything seemed very simple - First Deputy Premier Sergey Ivanov or the other first deputy premier, Dmitriy Medvedev, had long been tipped for the job of prime minister and were already being measured up for the president's seat. The Russian media hardly considered the possibility of the emergence of other candidates and paid attention only to the signs of competition between Medvedev and Ivanov. Vedomosti newspaper pointed out that in August and September Ivanov had featured in reports with Putin far more than Medvedev. Bets were, therefore, placed mainly on Ivanov and everyone was just waiting for their conjecture to be confirmed and the name of the favourite in the 2008 presidential race to be known for sure.

But Vladimir Putin caught everyone out - the previously not too popular Viktor Zubkov, 66, shot onto the stage like a comet, taking the second most important post in the state. Putin said later that he had chosen Zubkov because he is a "brilliant professional, a decent, right-thinking person". The new Russian premier's CV really is impressive - he began his career as a humble apprentice metal worker, then he took managerial positions in state farms and party bodies in Leningrad Region and from 2004 was head of the Russian Financial Monitoring Service, the federal service that is dubbed "financial spying". In the early 1990s Zubkov worked under Putin's leadership in the committee for external relations of the St Petersburg mayor's office. So he is also a graduate of the famous "Leningrad team". 

As for Mikhail Fradkov, there was no pressure on him and he left of his own accord, Putin stressed. A touching scene of civic consciousness was shown on all the main Russian TV channels - sitting opposite the president, Fradkov explains his resignation "by the approaching major political events in the country and the desire to give the Russian president complete freedom in decision-making, including in personnel decisions". Putin did not contradict him and said that "now everyone must think together about how to build the structure of power and management so that they better suit the election periods and prepare the country for the post-parliamentary and presidential election period in March 2008". Later the Kremlin chief also explained that he did not initially intend to change the government before the presidential elections. "A scenario was possible in which the government would not be changed until May 2008, and I would have liked the situation to have developed according to this scenario. Unfortunately, members of the government are first of all people. I saw that they were easing off the pedal in their work today and had already begun to think more about their personal fates after the elections. I would like the government in Moscow and the regional and federal authorities to tick like a Swiss watch, without stopping, right up to the elections, during the elections and after the elections and during the period between March and May 2008," Putin said.

Everything seemed perfectly clear and logical. But the enormous interest in the change of the head of government was not the result of concern about who would lead Russia's ministries, but of the desire to know who would lead Russia itself after March 2008. So the most interesting phase is just beginning.

Main mystery

Viktor Zubkov has not ruled out the possibility that he will stand in the forthcoming presidential elections in Russia. A short while later Vladimir Putin himself confirmed the possibility. Meeting members of the Valday discussion club in Sochi, he said that "if people said 12 to 18 months ago that there was no-one to elect as president, there was a tabula rasa, then now there are at least five people who can compete for the post of president and stand a chance of winning". Of course, the five people were not named but it emerged that the new prime minister was on the list. Asked whether Zubkov could put forward his candidacy in the presidential elections, the head of state replied that he could like any Russian citizen. Of course, everyone wanted to know who Putin would consider a worthy president. For example, the director of the Political Research Institute, Sergey Markov, suggested that the other four on the list were Sergey Ivanov, Dmitriy Medvedev, Sergey Naryshkin, head of the government apparatus, and Vladimir Yakunin, president of Russian Railways and of the Lokomotiv football club in Moscow.

However, this is just one theory among many. Many of the theories are bold and even fantastic, but nevertheless deserve attention.

For example, some people think that Medvedev and Ivanov remain favourites for president, while Putin just has to decide which of them to make his successor. The government's resignation was necessary as a way to get rid of unsuitable ministers without fuss whose presence in office would not boost the ruling party's chances in the parliamentary elections. Zubkov himself said that "those ministers who are rejected by the people and their right to conduct past policy will not be in the new cabinet". 

Another theory says that Putin really is counting on Zubkov and he will become president. Putin intends to put someone in the Kremlin that he can control completely, under the watchful eye of the loyal Ivanov and Medvedev, one of whom might become prime minister after all (however, Medvedev is now expected to be sidelined from the team). Four years later, Putin, refreshed after his break (at least, since Zubkov will be carrying out the public side of the work), will return to the Kremlin and he himself, as president, will open the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

There is a secondary theory to the above scenario. Its adherents say that once Zubkov has become president, he will resign after some time voluntarily on health grounds (he is already 66 after all) and then Vladimir Putin will return. What is important is that the clause in the Russian Constitution that one person cannot be president for more than two consecutive terms will have been observed. Putin will become president for a third time but after his "successor-predecessor". Experts think that the "fight against corruption" is the element that could help Zubkov become president. And there can be no doubt that information gained as head of the Russian Financial Monitoring Service could come in very handy.

With such intriguing hypotheses the media is now catching and carefully analysing every remark by the Russian president in case by chance (or not) he drops a hint about his future activities. After Putin's meeting with the Valday discussion club, Ariel Cohen, senior analyst at Washington's Heritage Foundation, told Reuters news agency that the Kremlin chief "did not rule out standing for president again" after the end of the next head of state's term in 2012. Of course, this report flew across the news wires worldwide. However, later the director of Russian and Eurasian programmes at the USA's World Security Institute, Nikolay Zlobin, who took part in the Sochi meeting, explained to everyone that the president was more ambivalent. The current head of state allegedly said that "he does not yet know what he will do" after leaving his post in 2008. Nevertheless, Putin, Zlobin says, promised "to find something interesting for himself by 2012". According to Zlobin, the president also said that "the new president would have to consult him and take into account the fact that his course was supported by the majority of the people". The fact that Western journalists had been hasty in drawing conclusions was confirmed in an interview with Gazeta.ru by Kommersant's special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov, who had been present at the Bocharov Ruchey residence in Sochi during the president's meeting with the Valday discussion club and Western journalists that took place behind closed doors. He thought that the Western media "simply saw things the way they wanted to". "Asked about his possible presidency, Putin was rather laughing it off, and my Western colleagues might have concluded from this that he was not ruling out his return to the presidency in 2012 or 2016. However, he did not say specifically whether he would come back or not. Some participants in the meeting formed the impression that Putin did not want to come back at all. He said that he does not intend to disappear from big-time politics and would certainly influence the country's political life without pursuing any aim of increasing his own power," Kolesnikov said.

Witnesses also reported that President Putin ended the conversation about the future with a phrase from the cult film Brother-2 (Brat-2): "Who wins is not whoever has force behind them, but whoever has the truth." Nikolay Zlobin said that the Russian leader also made a very interesting remark about the United Russia party, for whom the president sees a future only if they manage to achieve their objectives. If they do not, Putin is predicting the emergence of another force - social democratic - and this might be the Just Russia party.

It is worth noting in this regard that several experts advise keeping a close watch on the politician who leads the United Russia list in the elections. If United Russia wins, this person could be declared the uncontested successor to Vladimir Putin on the grounds of popular choice. Then Viktor Zubkov could well remain head of the government, making a coordinated team with the president, whoever he may be.

Expecting surprises

United Russia is feeling quite confident, as might be expected. According to the results of the most recent research by the Russia-Wide Centre for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), only two parties, United Russia (45 per cent) and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (8 per cent), could pass the 7-per-cent barrier to get into the State Duma if elections were held in mid-September. Just Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party are also close to the 7-per-cent barrier. If the sociologists are right and the situation does not change by 2 December, then United Russia could get 380 seats in parliament and the Communist Party 70. Just Russia and the Liberal Democrats probably will manage to get into the Duma though. However, the predictions of political scientists and sociologists about the parliamentary election results do vary. Although there are common trends - almost everyone talks about victory for United Russia and fierce competition between them and Just Russia and between Just Russia and the Communist Party. Almost everyone doubts that liberal parties will make it into the Duma.

Meanwhile, Sergey Ivanenko, the first deputy chairman of one of the oldest parties in modern Russia, Yabloko, said when commenting on the pollsters' work that VTsIOM's statistics do not give the real picture. He said that it was well within Yabloko's powers to get over the barrier. But for this the elections have to be relatively fair and relatively free. For his part, a Liberal Democrat deputy, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma's committee for international affairs, Leonid Slutskiy, said confidently that "these statistics are the result of the relative inactivity of the political electorate". The election campaign is not even actively under way yet in Russia and it promises much that will be of interest. At the very least, new, unexpected faces could appear in the State Duma. For example, businessman Andrey Lugovoy is second on the Liberal Democrats' list - the very same Lugovoy who is wanted by the British prosecutor on suspicion of involvement in the murder of former Russian special agent Aleksandr Litvinenko, who was poisoned by a radioactive substance in a London hotel in 2006. There have been rumours for some time that sportswoman Svetlana Zhurova could be in United Russia's top three. None of them can boast such potential influence on the voters as crippled soldier Andrey Sychev, 20, known throughout the world as a victim of bullying in the Russian army. The SPS party (Union of Right-Wing Forces) is interested in him. This emerged in the summer when the leaders of the right-wingers, Nikita Belykh and Boris Nemtsov, and the party's campaign manager Anton Bakov visited the lad. Andrey has been writing for a long time in his Internet diary that he wants to fight bullying and dreams of looking Sergey Ivanov in the eye, as he was responsible for the army at the time that Sychev served. However, many people do not approve of the SPS's find and describe using the crippled soldier in their election campaign as "bloody PR". Many political ships will sink or sail away before political calm sets in in Russia. Everything is just beginning - there is more than a month to go until the parliamentary elections and six months to the presidential poll. 

Vladimir Putin is looking down on all this from on high. His actions are very difficult to predict and his remarks sometimes very difficult to decipher. Only one conclusion can be drawn for certain from all that has happened in Russia in the first half of September - the president has left himself plenty of room for any manoeuvre that might occur to him. Some analysts say that the Kremlin has practically begun Operation Successor. What exactly Putin is planning will be revealed only after the results of the State Duma elections are known and when Viktor Zubkov's premiership begins to bear its first fruits.