Russian Politics Just Don't Ever Seem to Change

It comes as no surprise that Vladimir Putin, Russian Prime Minister and former President, has announced that he will again be a candidate for president in 2012.

He and current Russian President Dimitri Medvedev have decided to change jobs. Medvedev will become prime minister when Putin is again elected resident.

There have been rumors for more than a year that the two men were fighting about who would control the spoils of the Russian one-party political system, but today’s announcement dispels any doubt that they are working hand-in-glove.

The ruling United Russia Party is their party and the only one in Russia. United Russia holds 315 0f the 450 seats in the Russian Duma (parliament). Many analysts criticize Putin for making Russia once again a Soviet-style state in which he, alone, controls the media and all the major governmental functions, but his former life as a KGB agent makes his governing technique predictable.

Putin is 58 and if he serves the allowed two terms, which have been increased to six from four years, he will be 71 when he has to step down the next time.

Medvedev, on the other hand, is 46. So, he can afford to wait out his mentor, Putin, hoping that in 2024, when he will be 58, his turn will again come to be President of Russia.

That is, if the Russian people are still content in 2024 to be governed by a one-party system with tight grips on every element of Russian life. But, it would be short-sighted for the West to think that Russia is soon going to change. She has a history of autocratic rule. Russians have never known anything else - first as land-bound serfs under the tsars and then as economic and military pawns under the Soviet system.

In fact, one could argue that, given the enormous geographic expanse of the country and its very diverse ethnic make-up, western democracy would be difficult to install and even harder to maintain.

It is highly unlikely that Purin will lighten his grip in the near term, but perhaps as the next decade rolls on, he will loosen his control and admit some measure of self-determination into Russian politics. One thinks of Mikhail Khodorkovksy, the oligarch languishing in prison until 2019 because he dared to confront Putin as a potential political opponent. Such tactics cannot long continue if Mr. Putin wants to take what he considers to be his rightful place in world politics, instead of just manipulating the world through the control of Russia’s enormous petroleum reserves.  

Medvedev, a lawyer, might, as the leader of the younger generation, be able to undertake the job of finding the democratic template that fits Russia when he becomes president in 2024.

But, that is an eternity away in politics, even the politics of Russia. First, we have to get through 12 more years of Putin’s barely disguised contempt for the West and its leaders.