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The game's afoot: scenarios of power transition in Russia

But if the Constitution keeps the paragraph on dissolving the Duma if it rejects a President’s candidate for Premier on three occasions, then a shift towards presidential power will remain. Confirmation of a candidate for Premier by the Duma, or indeed all Cabinet ministers, will change little. Moreover, according to Putin, “the president should retain the right to define the tasks and priorities of the government”. That is, the president will still play a leading role in domestic policy, not the premier. As with the State Council, the constitutional changes could turn out to be purely cosmetic. Will Putin risk giving away presidential power to someone else – most likely, this time forever?

Several analysts believe that Putin won’t take the risk and, despite initial impressions of his speech, Putin will choose the Belarusian scenario – a life presidency. As Kirill Rogov has noted, the post of president, according to Putin’s speech, will also receive additional powers – for example, the right to remove judges from the Constitutional and Supreme Courts (in agreement with the Federation Council – it will be impossible to talk about an independent judiciary even formally). We can’t rule out that these new powers will be given to Putin, rather than someone else, and that during the “popular vote” on the constitutional amendments a new paragraph will appear on removing the limit on presidential terms. Besides, as Putin has already stated, Russian citizens will vote on all the changes at once, in a “packet” of laws.

Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia-2008? All three options are still available. It’s impossible to exclude any of them completely. There’s one thing that can be said confidently: the transition of power has begun, and the Kremlin has the initiative. But time isn’t on its side. The stagnation of the Russian economy and decline in people’s real incomes continues. The austerity policies of the crisis years, particularly in the social sphere, has allowed the Kremlin to achieve a budget surplus, saving serious funds. Putin accompanied his new constitutional proposals with some generous promises (“maternity capital” payment on the birth of your first child, additional payment on the birth of a second, and a partial mortgage compensation with the third), which suggest that it’s been decided to spend the reserves on social support – but will this help as the general outlook for people is so bleak?

Furthermore, in contrast to Putin’s promises, Russia’s new Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin looks more like a neoliberal technocrat than a populist. As soon as he took up the post, Mishustin announced that he was not planning to re-examine the recent – and highly unpopular – rise in official retirement age, nor introduce a progressive income tax scale. (Russian authorities are fond of talking about “traditional values”. It seems, though, that the flat tax on income – unheard of in developed states – is the only “traditional value” they believe in, as they are prepared to defend it from any attack.) In terms of social policy, Mishustin has so far merely repeated the liberal mantra on the necessity of moving to means-testing, to avoid accidentally spending money on those who don’t need it. With this approach, Mishustin’s cabinet is hardly likely to be more popular than that of his predecessor Medvedev.

Social protests in recent years have gained a new stubbornness and efficacy – the incredibly tough victories at the recent Ekaterinburg church protest and Shies anti-landfill campaign testify to this. Meanwhile, the opposition has learned how to use new political tools – like the “smart voting” strategy, whereby voters were encouraged to vote for candidates most likely to defeat their ruling party rivals. The danger of this strategy for the authorities, particularly in single-seat districts, and United Russia’s low approval rating haven’t gone anywhere. Moreover, against the background of Putin’s proposal to strengthen the role of the Duma, they acquire greater meaning.

More trust in parliament (and regional governors, also mentioned by Putin) means a greater stake on “managed democracy”. However, elections in recent years, which United Russia and its candidates regularly lose despite the way they’re held, says that the system of “managed democracy” has been shaken. No matter how brilliant the tactical combinations used by the Kremlin, they do not cancel the meaning of these long-term factors behind the crisis of Russia’s political system – something deeper than the power transition begun by Putin’s speech.

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