The following is a translation from Arabic
Presidential elections will be held in Russia in March 2008 to elect a new president for the state and constitutionally, the incumbent president Vladimir Putin will not be able to stand for elections for a third term in office.
In such a scenario, Putin has the following five options to choose from:
1. He may effect amendments to the constitution or transform Russia from a presidential system of governance to a parliamentary one.
2. He may promote a weaker candidate and work for his victory and force him to resign after he assumes office. This will enable him to run for another term.
3. Alternately, he may promote a weak candidate and then hasten up the process of unifying Belarus with Russia and run for the new state’s presidency.
4. He may support a candidate who is neither very strong nor too weak and after his term in office he may run for a new term thereafter.
5. He gives up his career in politics altogether.
As for the first option, Putin has repeatedly denied in the past that he does not intend to amend the constitution, which may result in instability in the country.
Regarding the second option, the Prime Minister Mikhael Fradukov held his regular meetings with Putin on 12th September, 2007 and stated that he may step down as from his office. A week before this, the presidential decree was issued to hold the presidential elections. Putin appointed Victor Zubkov as the Prime Minister, Zubkov, it may be mentioned is a rather unknown name in Russia and is a weak personality. This was a clear indication that Zubkov would be Putin’s successor. On assuming the president’s office, Zubkov may either be totally subservient to Putin or after a period in office may step down to pave way for Putin to become president again. Putin has however denied this as he fears that this may also result in instablising Russia and project him as being dictatorial.
Regarding the third option of hastening up the process of reunifying Belarus with Russia, it is a complicated issue which has been tried repeatedly during Putin’s term as president. This however has been Putin’s pet project to gradually withdraw autonomy from Russia‘s independent regions and then end the self rule in those areas. He intended to use referendums on the issue of internal rule. However, he pointed that since Belarus had not yet merged into the Russian Monetary Unit of Rouble, it was too early to talk of unification seriously. The Russian Communist Party chief Zoghanov regards this as a tactical political option.
As for the fourth option, Putin has by participating in the parliamentary elections of 2nd December ruled out his seclusion from active politics. This confirms his determination to stay in active politics. Although Putin was certain of victory yet he chose to wait for the results before announcing Zubkov’s succession who is a rather unknown personality. Thus he has countered any misgivings about the announcements and put an end to speculations. Four of the political parties garnered more than the 7% minimum votes required, and three of these parties, except the Russian Communist Party are pro-Putin. The Communist Party generally supports Putin’s foreign policy and is not too skeptical of his domestic policy either. Further, the votes that the communists were able to muster were less than their expectations which clearly indicates their weakening hold. Therefore, there can be hardly any serious opposition in the parliament now.
Shortly after the results of parliamentary elections, Putin announced that his candidate for presidency would be Dmitry Medvedev, a former chief of staff of the President’s office and Vice Prime Minster. Putin chose Medvevev instead of Zubkov and Sergie Ivanov, because the former is too weak a candidate and most likely to be seen as Putin’s puppet while Ivanov was too strong and may hinder Putin’s return and was considered as dangerous.
While Medvevev is a balanced candidate and as Putin has said, he has known Medvevev for the last 17 years and is closely associated with him. This has been mentioned in an article titled: “What awaits Russia and Turkey during the tenure of Putin successor Dmitry Medvevev” by Sinan Ogan and published on www.turksam.org. At the same time Medvevev is not very ambitious and sharp witted like Ivanov. He is also known to harbor liberal views which the West will look forward to. With such rather independent attributes, Medvevev is not likely to be seen as Putin’s puppet.
From Medvevev’s attributes, we can conclude the following about him:
With Medvevev as President, the chances of Putin forcing him to resign to enable Putin to become president again are improbable.
Since Medvevev is considered close to Putin, there is little chance of a policy change from the Putin era.
It is likely that Medvevev may focus on economic, financial and social policies since he had headed the “National Programmes” initiated by Putin to solve the social crises.
It is also likely that he may intensely focus on the energy sector in order to become a heavy weight in this area, since he has previously worked as head of the giant ‘Gazprom’ company.
Since he is a moderate and liberal, Medvevev may work to consolidate ties with the West especially Europe and also work to have friendly relations with the US, however at the same time he will not deviate from the path taken by Putin. For instance, Medvevev is not likely to 12th December agreement of AKKA which was designed to counter the growing American influence in the Caucasian region, its policies for the Caspian Sea region and the military bases in Central Asia. He will also stay on course regarding supporting the European countries to prevent the installation of the Missile launch station and establishing of an American military base in the Eastern Europe. Though Russia does not aim to suspend the AKKA accord totally, it intends to use this to counter American plans by forcing other concerned states to sign a modified version of AKKA.
Shortly after being nominated to succeed Putin as president, Medvevev announced on 12th December that if he is elected as president, he will nominate Putin as Prime Minister. This was also stated in the article titled: “What awaits Russia and Turkey during the tenure of Putin successor Dmitry Medvevev” by Sinan Ogan and published on www.turksam.org.
However Russia and especially Putin are known to spring surprises, hence though the elections are already announced to be held in March next, and Medvevev is thought to be the third president of the Russian Federation with Putin as his Prime Minister, this by no means can be taken as decisive.
It may be worth mentioning that while talking about Russia and the overwhelming personality of Putin, it by no means that he is the only decisive factor in Russia. With in the internal power equation in Russia, he represents several generals, intelligence elements, those who are referred as the Slovaks as well as the bureaucratic elements. The Slovaks under the leadership of Putin worked to counter the strength of the liberals and the influential elite during the era of Boris Yeltsin either by resorting to assassinate them or followed a policy to lure them into submission. Therefore Putin more, than being a dictator with absolute authority, represents the elite class that emerged victorious in the Russian power struggle. Therefore the nomination of Medvevev should not be seen merely as the personal choice of Putin, it should rather be viewed as the choice of that elite class as a whole.
22nd Dhil Hijjah 1428 A.H
31st December, 2007 C.E