Moskovsky Komsomolets: "Formula 5 x 6"
What is behind the amendments to the Constitution?
Last week, the State Duma approved the amendments to the Constitution that extend the President's term to 6 years and the parliament's term to 5 years. We asked Gleb Pavlovsky, President of the Effective Policy Fund, to explain the thinking behind the reform.
No more rehearsals
Q.: With the extension of presidential and parliamentary terms, Russians won't have to go to the polls as frequently as before. Is this the only benefit of the reform?
A.: To begin with, polls won't become less frequent. It is a deferred reform. Nothing will change in the next three years and in 2011-2012, "old-style" elections will be held. As usual, the Duma elections will be in the autumn, followed by presidential elections in the spring. This will be the last time, however. The future Duma will be elected for five years, which will make voters think hard about what parties they are prepared to tolerate until 2016. It is only then that the first six-year-term president will appear.
By the way, are you aware that a 4-year presidency is the Latin American model? In most European countries, presidents are elected for 5 or 6 years, as in neighbouring Austria and Finland. In Italy and, until recently, in France, they elect their presidents for 7 years.
Q.: Perhaps it makes more sense to compare us with other former Soviet Union countries?
A.: I am afraid the comparison would not be in their favour. They chose a very different path from ours: they extend the powers of incumbent presidents. They are allowed to serve three and even four terms until they become tsars for life. All the Russian presidents, from Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin to Dmitry Medvedev, have rejected that path.
Q.: They didn't want to antagonize the people. After all, we are a democracy, and not a monarchy.
A.: Yes, but democracy has a very powerful engine: those elected have to answerr to those who voted for them. If someone wants anything from the authorities, he must have a strong lever. In Russia, only the President and the Parliament are elected by the whole population. They alone depend on what we think about them, because they have to reaffirm their credentials by winning nationwide elections. All the others are "appointees", bureaucrats who form the overwhelming majority of the administration. In their demand for freedom and justice who can our citizens rely on, those they have elected, or the millions of appointees? To whom are the calls to fight corruption addressed, to the elected president or his staff? The anonymous staff survives all presidents. Nobody has elected them and there are no restrictions on their tenure. Let's face it, it is futile to appeal to the bureaucrat if you seek reform or change, because the bureaucracy does not have the power to make changes. You should enter into a contract with those you elect and those who depend on us. This is why society is interested in strengthening the elected part of government at the expense of the non-elected part - it's simple mechanics.
Q.: State Duma deputies also had their term extended, but by a year less. Why?
A.: The presidential and parliamentary elections should have been separated in time long ago, because when you have two federal campaigns back to back, the first inevitably overshadows the second. The Duma elections today are not about party programmes but about who will become the next president. Elections in December are little more than a rehearsal for March elections, and this weakens the parties. It is not the parties, but the groups supporting the candidates for president that compete. That way, we will never strengthen the party system and diversify them. There is a practical consensus on this long-moot topic. The question was only of timing.
Q.: Why at this point in time?
A.: Extending the presidential term is an extremely delicate issue. Our voters are distrustful and always question whether the President is not introducing these changes with himself in mind. You remember that Mr Putin was suspected of wanting to follow the example of Turkmenbashi. He has always been very touchy about that issue. Any serious conversation about extending presidential powers triggered speculations, which is why Mr Putin kept postponing the decision, and thus passed the buck to his successor. Mr Medvedev feels that it is best done three years ahead of elections, when he is not yet perceived as a candidate in the 2012 elections. If it happened a year or two later, everybody would contend that he was preparing the six-year term for "himself".
About values
Q.: In human terms, in what way does Mr Medvedev differ from Mr Putin?
A.: They are people from different moulds. Medvedev believes that the norm is the supreme value, judging from his first Presidential Address. In the Russian language, normality and norm are words with the same root, but though we consider ourselves to be normal, we do not like to stick to the norm. The President describes it as "legal nihilism". Mr Medvedev takes values seriously; for him justice, property, and freedom are not declarations, but inherently interconnected foundations of the country, as it were... He sincerely believes that if we break the rules less often, most national problems will become less severe. This applies to government institutions, which everybody reviles at present, and which may start functioning normally. Mr Medvedev is a stickler for rules. They say about such people (until they become presidents): "He will find life hard".
Mr Putin is a very different kind of person; I can relate to him more in terms of generations. I recognize him as a Soviet-educated intellectual of the 1970s-1980s. He is inclined more often than not to act not according to a rule book, but to improvise - like all people who have been raised in a country where goods were in short supply. In Soviet times, as Bulgakov said, "Whenever you wanted something, it was not there". It makes no sense to press buttons and wait for the result. You have to go out there and do everything yourself. If you don't do it yourself, you will get nothing but optimistic reports. The president has no option but to be ‘innovative'.
When Mr Putin became President, a war was on in the Caucasus. It could not be perpetrated according to a manual, because there was not enough money and there were not enough troops. The West offered help, but everybody realized that once they entered, they would never leave. So, falling back on Soviet-era resourcefulness (we now call it innovation) he had to engineer peace in Chechnya with the resources that were available. I call it "jazz statehood", where tactics and improvisation are more important than rules and norms. However they may have cursed Mr Putin, today there is peace in Chechnya, but Bush has no peace in Iraq. Dmitry Medvedev can build his presidency on European norms and values because "he stands on the shoulders" of Mr Putin, who brought order to our chaos while seldom following the rules himself.
Mr Medvedev's task is to provide a long-term and clear-cut strategy: for the state, society and business. By the way, the need for a long-term strategy - until 2020 or some other date - is another argument in favour of a long presidency. What is 4 years for a country where so much territory is undeveloped? No regional development programme can be implemented between elections. Few presidents would risk embarking on such change if, by the time of the next election, they have incurred expenses but not achieved results. To this day, the conflict between the short presidential term and the need to plan ahead for a long period is very real.
Interviewed by Mikhail Zubov
